Definitives
by Phantomphaeton
Summary: Because shades of gray are too murky, vague and unreliable, a select few of us prefer the blacks and whites. Sequel to Absolutes.
1. Chapter 1

So it turns out that most of the time when you're sick of something, you just need a little break to rest your mind a little. When I first created this story, I had a lot of ideas to write about but I had gotten so sick of the story that I was scared if I continued it that it would begin to suck. But it turns out that all I needed was a little break to calm my head, turn to other projects, give myself some time to think clearly and now here I have been able to write out another small volume of Israel's fabulously horrible misadventures at Winterfell. Welcome back and enjoy.

-.-

I always wake up feeling nauseous. Breakfast delayed for two hours—sound familiar? Well...yeah. Waking up feeling too sick to eat breakfast is typically how my day usually starts, so I wouldn't notice if it happened on any given day for any particularly unusual reason. So a good few days after the Great Sept has been opened for business (or worship...whatever) I wake up and the truth is that I'm not feeling so hot. But because this is the usual case, I brush it off and start my day. Lady Brienne is waiting by my door faithfully. Gods, I fucking hate her haircut. Not the color...just the cut.

I'm not even sure what it is that I have to do today, but I feel the almost overpowering urge to dash back to my bed and hide under the furs. Of course this is a typical reaction to a northern morning. You try waking up at sunrise to go riding with the in laws and see how it shakes up _your_ sleeping pattern and then we can talk.

"Septa Eleanor was hoping you'd meet with her today," Julia says to me. "About that old streamview property."

Right. The lady wants an orphanage. To tell the truth, I'm sort of glad people are still recruiting me for projects like these even now that reconstruction is over and done with. I like having something to do. I _especially _like having something to do if it's something that I'm good at doing anyways.

And _Gods_, does it shut people up. I've gotten grudging respectful glances and shuffles along and almost smiles from the worst of critics. They still don't like me—no denying that. But there's also no denying that they're beginning to see my sense. I've only heard '_Frey girl_' whispered thirteen times this week. That's real improvement. Granted the _Night of Which We Must Not Speak_ also had a hand in that. But still. Progress is progress.

When skipping breakfast is your usual routine, there's always something you've gotta do to get your brain into the groove of the day. For me, I replace the meal with some air. Not as in I go outside. The weather, dude. It's fucking cold here. I just stand by the door and inhale enough to clear my head but not enough to freeze my lungs because northern air can do that to you.

Now as I walk to the little door I like to take my morning inhale beside, I always get a whiff of food wafting towards me from the Great Hall. This is normal and it never does any serious damage to me. But not today. Today I hurry outside and to the side of the building and vomit up anything that I didn't vomit up last night after hearing the latest installment in Lord Bryndon's war story. Not much, really. Just water and lots of wine. You'd think that after maybe twelve hours I'd have digested that stuff already. Nope. For some odd reason it was still sitting there waiting to clear the exit.

"Madame?" Brienne asks cautiously as Mira holds my hair out of my face. Julia hands me a flask of water. I rinse my mouth out and spit, then wipe my lips and turn back to her.

"I'm alright," I say. "Perfectly alright."

"Her Grace gets queasy in the mornings," Julia tells her. "It's routine."

Though she and Mira are both looking at me funny because my morning queasiness has never made me puke before. They must be eating something with mutton in it over in the Great Hall. Only the scent of mutton can make me puke instantly. Like shooting a crossbow. Whatever's on the other end of that bow is going to die just as surely as mutton will make me fire a projectile stream of half digested food at whichever unlucky soul is nearby.

"Madame, you're looking awfully pale," Brienne says.

Which is typically the case with a person who's just vomited their last meal and possibly one of their kidneys.

"I assure you, I'm fine," I tell her.

I feel really, _really_ close to dead. So Brienne gets to walk be_side_ me instead of two or three feet behind me this morning as I make my way to the woods.

Phillip doesn't seem too active this morning, either. She trots at a sluggish pace that would normally annoy me, but what's weird is that my queasiness still hasn't worn off yet. Which is funny because on any normal day it would have been gone by now—or even faster considering that I'm outside and fresh air does wonders for queasiness no matter how much it feels like inhaling a blizzard.

The Mad Band of Misfits is acting funny, too. Demon and Silver have been moving along the stream with us for like an hour and neither of them have made an opening strike yet. It's unsettling. Usually trying to calm them down is how I get into character with the whole queen thing. Makes me wonder what they've been smoking.

"Good morning, Your Grace," Septa Eleanor smiles brightly at me.

Says who?

"It's wonderful to see you again, Septa," I take her hand and squeeze it involuntarily. Shit. Vertigo. I'm seeing green.

"My word, have you been taken ill?" Septa Eleanor asks as Brienne rushes forward to steady me.

I want nothing more than to bury my head in the ground and never resurface.

"I'm fine," I say. "I just got a whiff of mutton from the Great Hall and I'm afraid it does terrible things to my constitution."

"Strange," Septa Eleanor says. "As I understand it, they're breakfasting on lamb."

Literally who the hell cares? Both of them are wooly and make weird sounds that remind me of Father.

"Nevermind it now," I say, waving it off. "Now let's have a look at this parcel of land, shall we?"

Septa Eleanor is a talker. I know this the second I see her mouth. It's all in the wrinkles around the corners, see. They can give you a good clue how much of their time a person spends running their mouth. And this lady—oh, Gods. Divine secrets of mankind are etched into the little cracks and crinkles in her skin. I knew it the second I saw her that I was looking at one of the Gods' rarer creatures. My ears mutate into folded up envelopes in less than an hour. An entire step in evolution done right here in a single hour listening to this woman talk.

And what's worse is that today of all days when I'm freakishly queasy and bloated I'm hardly in the mood to be dealing with any of this crap. My bleeding is scheduled to start today. Explains why I feel like I got hit by a rampaging mother in law.

Speaking of, she's been floating on cloud nine for the past few days. She's wrapped up in her bouncing baby boy Rickon. He's like the cutest thing ever, this kid. Really. Where did she go wrong with Robb? How come I get the ginger genetic whoopsie while some lucky girl out there gets to marry this little bundle of joy in a few short years? People adore this kid. I'm not complaining. Every second that people spend doting on him is a second that they spend leaving me alone. And oh, boy—do these people _dote_ on this little prince. I don't blame them. He's a gorgeous child. Cutest thing since people started painting portraits of lambs wearing knit sweaters.

I'm finally released from Septa Eleanor's clutches at around high noon. I'm still ready to vomit on something, but there's nothing left to vomit. It's only when I get into the castle and I've regained the feeling in my fingers that I get hungry. Like _really_ hungry. Like eating the entire Northern kingdom is suddenly a good idea. I should probably head to the Great Hall. They'll be expecting me in there by now. I've never put off breakfast this long. I turn back in the direction of the food, but I'm thrown off by green again.

Fucking vertigo. I knew those morning rides would curse me. Now I'm coming down with a fever. Fevers and periods do not mix well. I've had them both at once before, okay? Bad combo—very very bad.

And then it gets worse. Just as I've paused by the wall, gripping the sides of my head as Brienne and the girls steady me, I smell it. Wood smoke.

When you see as much of your husband after dusk as I see of mine, then you can understandably not want to see a single hair on his ginger head during the daylight hours. Wood smoke to me is now an alarm. I don't care how much progress we've made. In exchange for access to my ass every night, you're required to mind your distance every day.

"Israel, are you alright?" Robb asks, taking my hand and pulling me clsoer to get a good look at my face.

"Coming down with something, I'm afraid," I say.

You know, now that I think on it, it might be possible that the side effects from the wolfblossom seeds I've been slow poisoning Robb with might have been transferred to me. Huh. Talk about making your own bed. Now I've gone and poisoned myself. But...hang on a minute—the sun is coming up.

If I'm sick in bed, then Robb can't fuck me. How long can I milk this? A week? Two? No—too drastic. They'll think I'm dying. So...four days? Ha! Four days is more than I could ever have asked for.

"You're sickly pale," he says. "You ought to return to the chambers."

"I could _never_!" I say, my hand on my chest as if appalled by the very idea. Yes I fucking _could_. Take me back to bed now before I pass out in your pasty ginger arms. Which—by the way—is the last place I'd like to pass out. I'd much prefer Lady Brienne's arms or the corner by the fireplace or maybe in a rubbish ditch. Whichever one of those is good.

"Not another word, my dear," Robb says, taking my hand. "Back to bed with you."

Yes. Fucking yes.

Except Robb doesn't leave it at that. He sees fit to accompany me back to our chambers. Um...whoa there, buster. Don't you have...kingly things to get back to?

"Leave us," Robb says to the girls. Julia and Mira curtsey to us before leaving the room, closing the door behind them.

Oh, come on. Surely the threat of an approaching fever would mean that midday sex is out of the question?

"There's something you and I need to discuss," he says slowly. "And I know you prefer truth over style...somewhere under there...so I'll just make this blunt. Ramsay Snow and his men have clashed swords with Ser Lanagan and the team at the borderland."

"Really?" That was quick. "How did it go?" Don't care in the slightest.

"Bittersweet," Robb says. "Snow was put in chains and is on his way to Ironrath with the remainder of our men. Many of them are dead, even more wounded."

"How unfortunate," I say. Don't care. Glad to see you're the one telling me, though.

"With the men arriving at Ironrath for treatment, many of the soldiers who are still there are being moved to Winterfell. And..with them..." Robb sighs. "Is Lady Maegyr."

Ah, the punchline.

"She's coming with most of the healing staff from Ironrath to train other healers here in Winterfell," Robb goes on, and I swear he's getting slower and slower with every word he says. "With all the wounded needing treatment at Ironrath, they're short on healers."

"I see," I say carefully.

Hang on a minute. If Robb is climbing off of Talisa then maybe he'll leave me alone. It could work. And I won't have to risk getting caught poisoning him twice a week. Hello, sunrise!

But because this is the slightest tad annoying, I pretend to look sternly put out and head into the bathroom. I need aromatherapy. Now. I light a candle and drip oil onto the boiler and take a seat by the window, checking my fabric.

Um...no blood. But why? Today's supposed to be the day. Wait...yesterday was. Yeah. Yesterday. So...why no blood? I've got everything else. Cramps. Nausea. The Gods even gave me a fever. My chest feels raw and my head hurts like fuck. Hello, womanhood? You're a little overdue and I kinda need you to come along now so I don't have to sleep with my gingersnap husband and—

"Israel," Robb comes into the room. "We're still...are you...alright...with this? With her being here? I know you might be worried, but I promise you we can make this work. _I_ can make this work. I know you're running a fever and you don't want to think about this right now. But I want you to know...you can trust me."

Hang on, gingersnap. Your girlfriend is the least of my problems right now. I'm too busy counting the days since my last bleeding. The math is right. I'm never wrong with numbers. And this is kinda weird because when it comes to probables, I've always been a queen.

Three possible explanations that I have before me:

1) My body is reacting strangely to the sudden change in atmosphere and has decided to wait until several months after my arrival to show these changes.

2) I'm going to die of a fever so heinous that it's made my body run dry in preparation for the grave.

3) I'm pregnant.

The possibilities range in likelihood from '_no way' _to '_no fucking way'_. See? None of them are even accurate. Which is why I've always preferred to deal in absolutes.

Robb is still looking at me, waiting for a response. Well, here's your response. I turn to face him and flash my most dazzling smile.

"Look," I say, and then I throw up.


	2. Chapter 2

"It's not funny," I say.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Robb says, trying his best not to smile.

"You're laughing."

"I'm not laughing, I'm smiling."

"It's a prelude to a laugh. You're laughing at me."

"I'm not, I swear."

"You're a terrible person."

"You're wonderful," he says, looking me square in the eyes as he says it. "Have I ever told you how wonderful you are?"

"No one has," I say. "Stop laughing."

"Smiling."

"Same damn thing!"

Robb holds up his hands in mock surrender. "Alright, alright. So tell me—how was your day?"

"Horrible," I say. "One day you're all going to wake up and find Ser Garret's corpse floating downstream."

"Ohh. You presented the orphanage plans?"

"He drank everyone under the table."

"People are always going to be challenging you, Israel," Robb says as he refills my wine. "There's always going to be some cheeky shit out there who thinks he can do your job better than you can. Your only duty then is to keep being as perfect as you are to prove to them that _you_ can do it, too."

I shrug, taking a sip of my wine and wincing. My stomach has been bothering me. I swear I knew this northern food might kill me one day. Now I'm probably dying. What is the honest likelihood of me being poisoned? I guess one could say it's pretty high but that's only with the assumption that every single person who's ever hated me would actually hate me enough to try to _kill_ me—which is pretty unlikely. I'm fairly sure they don't truly _despise_ me—they just like having someone to talk shit about.

So maybe it's not that I've been outright poisoned, but maybe I've got food poisoning. Northern food is freaking weird, okay? And the freezing cold might cover up the fact that I'm eating something bad. But hang on a second. Nymsy is the best insulator in the universe. So it's not as cold around here now that I've taken over the show. So if there's some horrible little shit in the kitchens who's been putting spoiled food onto my plate twice a day, then I think I'd have smelled it. If I haven't, then maybe I _deserve_ to be poisoned.

Then what? I think of the three possibilities that flew through my head that first day when the sickness got really bad. Maybe my body could be reacting badly to the address change. I mean—some of us just weren't built for the extreme cold. But whatever sickness the sudden temperature fluctuation could bring me should have passed in the first few weeks after my arrival. It's been _months_.

Possibility two is still going through my mind. I'm going to die of a fever. But this fever is awfully slow. It's been a solid week since I first doubled over puking outside the castle and the only trouble that I'm dealing with is in my stomach. So it's a stupid, lazy fever that likes to take its dear sweet time fucking me over or the north is a more fucked up place than I first thought because even the _fever_ is an asshole.

Possibility three isn't even worth considering. So I definitely must have eaten a funny lamb chop or something. Since I've never heard of a fever that sits in your stomach for a week straight. It's definitely a virus. Unless…

Holy shit.

Unless I've contracted the plague. I look up at Robb, who's still downing his wine. I reach over and rub my palm against his hand hurriedly. Hell, if this thing takes me, I'm not going down alone.

He looks down at our hands and, clearly thinking I'm looking to get intimate, he takes my hand in his and kisses my fingers. There we go. Get those germs. His fingers trail up my forearm, to my shoulder. Whoa, there tiger. Don't pick up _that_ many germs.

"When will they be here?" I ask. "The Ironrath company?"

"Tomorrow afternoon," he says. Pause. Here it comes. "I can do this, you know," he says. "I'm not going to bed her."

"I have the utmost faith in you," I say. Yeah fucking right. You haven't seen her in…how long? You don't know for _shit_ how you're gonna feel when you see her again.

My mind's been busy with trying not to throw up on every conceivable surface in the castle, but this whole Talisa thing is something that I know should be bothering me. I know it bugs the stuffing out of Catelyn.

"Winter is slow approaching and he has a kingdom that needs looking after," she had said bitterly. "He has no business getting wrapped up with that _girl_ again!"

The truth is that how I feel about Robb hasn't changed much since I first arrived here so many months ago. Yeah, yeah, I like the chance to get to badmouth Ser Garret every night. I like that I get to talk to someone—even if that someone is literally the king of the insiders. It helps that we're actually talking to each other regularly because we're making progress and to be totally honest with myself I'm actually proud of that progress. Things I see around here that confuse or annoy me, I keep pent up until after hours when everyone's gone to bed for the night and Robb and I are wide awake by the fireplace with a pitcher of wine and it helps to have someone to tell it to. Unfortunately, Robb is still not family, and this place is not the Twins, so I don't have someone to tell it _all_ to. Because how are you supposed to tell your husband that you don't give a single shit about what he does? Robb is my husband—my overly noble, chokingly honorable, slightly asshole-ish husband—and we're just getting into that phase where we start to tell each other things. It's still a long road until we start to tell each other _sensitive_ things. Otherwise Robb would have known by now that I have to bite my lip every single night to hold back biting his head off at all the things he does to bait me to jerk another rant out of me. I don't know _why_ he enjoyed that. He didn't even get _laid_ that night.

And you know what's funny? He's been baiting me ever _since _that night, like that shit he pulled with the dress and the perfume wasn't enough. He wants another rant. He _liked _when I lost it that night. In some weird fucked up way it actually turned him on.

Do you have any idea how hard it is not to call him out for that sound of his voice when we're going at it in bed? Now, I _know_ that's bait because sometimes he's just too tired to put on a show and his voice sounds _fine_ then. But when he's trying to mess with me it's…it's _catastrophic_. It's not real, the way his voice sounds. I'm not sure what the hell he's trying to accomplish by trying to make me complain about our sex life, but it's some _funky_ shit. His Bait Voice sounds like the way a person's voice would sound if he were hiding in the closet as thieves were invading his home in the dead of night. Everything comes out in these low, hoarse whispers and at first it was hi-fucking-larious but then I realized what it is he's trying to do when he uses it and now it's just irritating. But that's his objective, fucking duh, so I'm not gonna say anything exclusively so I can inflict as much annoyance as he inflicts on me. Two can play this game, gingersnap.

Now I know, I know. We should have learned by now that communication is important. But this _is_ communication. He annoys me when he wants me to loosen up a little, and I throw heavy things at his head when he needs to tighten up a little. Candleholders, paperweights, envelope seals, a chamberpot, whatever is handy. It's a silent, easy communication that doesn't involve awkward conversations or anymore humiliating confrontations or fights. The only words we exchange are words of cordial kindness and gentility and the occasional '_loosen your corset strings_'. The real talking gets done without us needing to talk at all. Aside from the fact that Baiting is fucking annoying, I like our arrangement. Throwing heavy things at him is fun and relieves my stress. Wine and Bitch helps, too, but I wonder what Robb would say if he knew that most of my problems here in Winterfell are related to him?

If Robb can keep things between himself and Talisa as well as he's keeping them with me, then I'm not too worried that we'll have any sort of mortifying scandal on our hands. Unless, of course, he keeps things with Talisa _exactly _as he's keeping them with me, which means they can and will fuck so often that _not_ being caught together is virtually impossible.

Now realistically thinking, if I had it my way then of course Robb and Talisa will behave as grown adults. I guess that I can rely on Robb to keep his word, but I'm not sure Robb quite understands exactly what it is that he's promising me. This sort of thing—well, I don't know much about love but I'm fairly sure that this kind of promise is easier made than kept. Who knows how difficult it'll be when he actually sees her? They haven't seen each other in a while—a _long _while—and time fixes things, makes it feel like something is behind you when in truth it could just be the distance that's strengthened you. I'm just gonna have to hope that this time they've been apart is _enough_ time for them. Because thinking honestly, there's no way in hell that I'm interested in dealing with Robb being in love with Talisa. That'll make the Wine and Bitch sessions awkward and I don't want that because my dysfunctional relationship with Robb is probably my healthiest one here in Winterfell and when you add love affairs to the mix things always get dirty.

Robb may be a backwater gingersnap, but he's still my husband, as much as that makes me cringe. And I suppose it would have been _nice_ to let him and Talisa Maegyr run wild, fucking on every surface available to them like a pair of jackrabbits. I wonder if Talisa can go as often as he can? Moving forward. Unfortunately, all of Winterfell is going to be watching me very closely and that means that Robb can't fuck up. For the kingdom's sake. More importantly for _my_ sake. Because I think at some point we're slowly turning into maybe possibly friends. Not an absolute. Not quite yet. But it's materializing fast and I know that because it's been a week since I puked up my lungs right in front of him and he still laughs at the memory when he looks at me. So we must be getting somewhere, right?

But if we're friends, or en route to becoming friends, then I don't think I have much to worry about. And I'm not. Love and friendship aren't on the same boat, anyways. Robb and I are steering our own boat. They don't call it _love_ship, do they? He and Talisa don't have a boat. They just have an island with a single coconut tree and some banana leaves. An island might keep you alive for a while, but it's not gonna get you anywhere. That's an absolute.

"Just don't make an idiot of me," I say to him quietly. "Out of any of us. Me, you, _and_ her."

He pats my hand. Then he snorts.

"I'm sorry," he says, and he cracks up again.

I roll my eyes and get to my feet.

"Good_night_, Robb," I say. Fucking carrot.

"Wait, wait, wait, I'm sorry—" but the words don't come out right cause he's laughing so hard. Pasty teabag.

My stomach gives a lurch as I crawl into bed. At the rate I'm going, I doubt that I'll even be _alive_ by the time Talisa gets here. So I won't be around for the mortifying scandal. Hehe. Nothing can embarrass me when I'm dead. But seriously? I should probably go see Maester Ormond in the morning.


	3. Chapter 3

To Mira and Julia's credit, they give me an extra half hour in the sack before they wake me and—expressions appropriately contrite—inform me that Septa Eleanor has passed away.

"When?" I ask.

"The early hours of the morning," Julia says as I sink into my bath.

Gods, sitting in this bathtub full of warm water is the only time of the day when my body is the slightest bit calm. Maybe I ought to consider taking three baths daily instead of the usual two.

"How did it happen?"

"Maester Ormond says it was quiet and peaceful. She just…went to sleep and didn't wake up."

Went to sleep and never woke up? Some girls have all the luck.

"How awful!" I say, my hand on my chest.

I wonder how much Furrow bark I'd have to smoke to bite the dust so peacefully. I don't think it's possible to die of over smoking Furrow, though.

"It is. And today Your Grace is very busy with the Ironrath company arriving so Mira and I have been searching your schedule and it would appear that you _do_ have a free half hour later in the day to meet with Ser Calvin, who will be handling the funeral preparations."

Septa Eleanor couldn't have picked a better time to kick the bucket. I suppose if I step in to help with the funeral preparations, then I'd have a legitimate excuse for not being around Robb and Talisa. I liked Septa Eleanor. She was one of the few people in this shithole who didn't regularly make me want to eat poison. I'd have much preferred if someone else had died, like Ser Garret or Ser Brixby or maybe Robb. And while Septa Eleanor's death means that the Israel wagon is missing a loyal passenger, let it not be said that the woman died in vain—her death has served a purpose and an advantage. It would be almost _insulting_ to her memory if I _didn't_ use this opportunity to distance myself from the hurricane that is most likely going to roll in with Talisa Maegyr. I'm not much of the praying type—I can't imagine the Gods would be big fans of mine right now—but I'm definitely going to be praying for Septa Eleanor.

On the other hand, I really would like to see Talisa Maegyr again. I said it before and I'll say it again—she's one of the most likeable people I've met in Winterfell to date. I liked hanging around her. Her situation was one that I handled really well and regardless of how Robb reacted to it I'm still proud of how smoothly I worked things out with her. It made me feel like a queen. Even though technically _she_ was supposed to be queen. Part of me is sort of nagging like I should be there around her, but another part feels like I should give her space—like hanging around her might make her uncomfortable. Well, to be honest, I can't even believe that how she feels or what she thinks has any weight with me, but it does. I'm more concerned about how she feels than I am about how Robb feels. Because in a way, she and I are both victims of this deal Robb made with my dad. She lost a great love (if only she knew she's not missing much) and I lost my peace of mind. I'm not too sure what it is that Robb's lost, but it would seem that he's made up for losing it by winding me up and watching me go bonkers.

I told myself I'd work on being a queen first and then worry about being a wife, but now that reconstruction is complete there's enough room in my head for both. I don't like thinking about the state of my marriage because it sucks. It'll get easier as time passes but until then it fucking sucks. So now's as good a time as any to figure out what I'm going to do. I'm not too sure why I feel this way, but I can't shake the feeling that Talisa being here might just be a good thing.

Everyone is abuzz as the day wears on. I don't see Robb until we're all standing on the steps outside the entrance hall, when he takes my hand and gives it a kiss. Germs, gingersnap. Lick them off and die tomorrow.

"You should go inside soon," Robb says. "I'll not have you falling ill again and this cloak is no good in this weather."

Uh…duh. That's why I'm wearing it. I'm freezing my ass off but at least I don't have to linger.

Shit. I've been so wrapped up in this whole Septa Eleanor thing that I forgot to go to see Maester Ormond. As much as I'd like to theoretically infect all of Winterfell, I don't fancy the idea of being forever remembered as the queen who killed the North.

Oh, Gods above. Ser Lanagan has never looked so bad. His beard's gotten white and he's covered in distantly healing cuts and bruises. He sinks into a shaky bow when he sees us.

"Your Grace," he addresses Robb, and I'm afforded the perfect view of a slowly balding shiny spot on the crown of his head. "My Queen," he adds in my direction, catching my hand and kissing it.

I'm thinking about warning him about the fact that I'm possibly contagious, but I change my mind because in truth this guy looks like he might just drop dead before whatever plague I'm carrying gets a chance to do anything to him.

"Welcome back to Winterfell, Ser Lanagan," I say.

"It's very good to be back, Your Grace," he says to me, rising to his full height. "I bring with me the healers and trainees from Ironrath," he gestures to the small group behind him. They all sink into bows.

Though I know immediately which one she is, I don't get a chance to eye Talisa because my stomach gives a funny lurch and I'm feeling dangerously queasy again. I discreetly slide my hand underneath the flimsy fabric of my cloak, patting my stomach and inhaling deeply, silently willing myself not to vomit all over this guy.

Don't do it, Israel. You will never live it down. The _entire_ castle is here to see you and they will never ever let you forget it. _You_ will never ever let you forget it. Throwing up here and now is worse than drowning in a tub of brass. Please do not vomit in public. Inhale again. That's right. In. Out. Breathe. Do. Not. Puke. In. Public.

"Though we are terribly sorry to have arrived under such circumstances," Ser Lanagan continues.

Shut _up_. Shut up and let me get my ass back inside before I shoot a projectile stream of whatever it is I've eaten in the past few hours into your face.

"Indeed," Robb says, nodding. "But the success of our mission has cheered us all."

"I was referring to the late Septa Eleanor," Ser Lanagan says. "We only just heard from Lord Edmure. I offer my sincerest condolences, my Queen," he tips his head to me. "I understand she was a dear friend of yours. I'm sure she's in a better place."

No, she's not. She grew up in Highgarden.

"How very kind of you, Ser Lanagan. Let's not keep you out here in this cold. Ser Garret, show our guests inside. I'm sure they're awfully tired after their journey."

Get inside. Get inside. Get inside. Turn the corner. Turn the corner. Turn the corner. Run upstairs. Run upstairs. Run upstairs. Puke up your lungs. Simple as breathing. Air in, brunch out.

"Your Grace," Brienne steadies me and hands me a glass of water. I slosh it around in my mouth and spit it out. Mira and Julia close the door to my chambers and crack open a window to let some air in.

"Send for Maester Ormond," I tell them. "I'm afraid I've come down with something. But do it quietly. I don't want anyone to know."

Julia runs out the door. Mira closes it behind her and moves the cushions from the chair by the fire as Brienne sits me down.

"Lady Catelyn wanted to speak with you later," Mira tells me. "Would you like me to tell her you are indisposed?"

"Do that," I say. I've not the slightest interest in dealing with that lady complain to me about holding onto my husband when—in all likelihood—I'm probably going to be holding onto my _life_ in the next few days.

Maester Ormond arrives on Julia's heels in a few minutes. Normally I suppose it would take a little longer for him to get here but he must have been nearby anyways because of the arrivals.

"Good afternoon, Your Grace," he says as he sinks into a deep bow. "Lady Julia tells me you are feeling unwell."

"I think I've got food poisoning," I tell him.

"When did you first suspect this?" he asks.

"A little over a week ago," I say. "Nearly eight days."

"Eight? I've never heard of food poisoning that can last that long."

"I also think maybe I might possibly have contracted something," I say. "Perhaps a stomach virus?"

Like hell I'm going to tell him I'm possibly bubonic. The last thing I need right now is to be held accountable for a viral outbreak.

"Well, let's have a look and see. If your Grace would permit me to inspect your hands?"

I hold out my hands to him and he eyes my palms. "You've grown terribly pale. What symptoms have you been feeling?"

"Headaches," I say. "Nausea. Terrible nausea."

"It could be a slow growing fever," he says. "Or you may be eating something nauseating on a regular basis. Anything else?"

"Well, I suppose…"

Hang on a minute. I know what the fuck is going on here. Oh, shit. No fucking way.

I'm pregnant.

Here I was thinking my life was finally looking up and now the gingersnap's gone and knocked me up.

The truth is that what's really given it away is the last symptom—it's been over a week and my period is late as fuck. Which wouldn't be unusual because in truth it's never on time. And so when this whole misery business started eight days ago being pregnant wasn't even worth considering because statistically speaking it's the least possible thing that could ever have happened to me. I mean—the odds are freaking _astronomical_. Everyone knows that. Even _Robb_ knew that when he married me.

My mother didn't get pregnant with me until maybe three years into her marriage. And _that_ was a miracle because it took maybe a gazillion prayer circles and a hundred and one frightening fertility tonics to make it happen. And that means that I'm not supposed to get pregnant for at _least_ that long, if not longer. I was supposed to be barren as a brick. That was sort of the idea.

Seriously? Fuck. This is _not_ a good time to be baking Robb's munchkin. His ex-lover being here and all—it sort of complicates the equation.

Oh Gods, how fucking ironic is it that Septa Eleanor dies on the same day that I discover I'm preggers? In the midst of death, there is life. Hahahahehehe.

Moving on.

"Your Grace?" Maester Ormond is still waiting.

"I've been eating parsley," I say quietly. "Parsley always makes me sick. I didn't notice it before, but now I think on it I've been eating parsley. Thank you, Maester Ormond."

No way in hell am I going to tell anyone about this until I've cleared my head. It's a lot to take in, and I'm not going to ask anyone to try to wrap their heads around what _I'm_ still trying to figure out. So…for now it'd be best if I just buried this little detail.

But keeping it from Robb probably wouldn't be too smart. I mean—it's his baby, too. But it's early. I mean—I think it is. Late and irregular bleeding patterns mean that I—unfortunately—have no real way of knowing how far along I am. But if no one's noticed anything strange about me yet, and this chronic nausea is the worst of my problems, then that means that I'm still early on. And if I'm still early on, then there's still a chance that this might not work out. Miscarriages happen in the first three months, right? If I tell Robb—and then end up _losing_ this thing—then I'm probably not going to get any more popular with these people.

So…what then?

It feels like the smartest thing for me to do is to wait until I'm out of the woods. Once I've steered clear of the danger zone, then I can tell him. No point getting anyone's hopes up for nothing.

These guests are more worn out than I first thought, because most of them don't even pop up for luncheon. Well, that's what Julia tells me, because I sure as hell don't go around to check. I head down to dinner though, because if I _do_ intend to get out of the woods than I'm probably going to need to feed this thing something.

Holy monkey madness. I'm gonna be a mom. Oh, shit. I mean—I figured it would happen eventually, after a few years when Robb and I seriously start to worry about it and start on the fertility treatments and the healers and shit. Who would have thought I'm actually more fertile than my mother? So I need to rethink my theory on fertility statistics. An infertile mother doesn't always guarantee an infertile child.

I get chicken at dinner. Bless the cooks. No parsley anywhere in sight.

"You were absent at luncheon," says Catelyn to me over her wineglass. "Maester Ormond tells me you've gotten poisoning. I had no idea parsley did so much damage to your constitution. I thought you simply didn't like the taste."

"Oh no, Aunt Catelyn," I say. "A single whiff is enough to put me off my dinner."

I drain my glass of water and that's around the time that I notice that Robb's not here. I look to my side. There he is. Right next to me. Why is it that his hands haven't found their favorite spot on my ass tonight? Oh…right. His eyes are somewhere else. I look across the hall quickly. She's not looking at him. Her eyes are on her friend, talking aimlessly. If his expression is any indication, he's not doing too well right now.

Told you that it's easier said than done, dumbass.

Robb's hands stay to himself for the remainder of the evening. You'd never see a guy on better behavior. But that all flies out the window when we go to bed for the night, because suddenly his hands are flying everywhere they shouldn't as if he's only just noticed and is trying to make up for it.

I'm half tempted to tell him that his baby batter's already done its magic, and if he's gonna do that Bait thing then I'll definitely consider it. But he's distracted tonight. Thinking of her, definitely. I'm not counting on any kind of consistency in the next few weeks.

"Do it to me baby," he says. Bait Voice strong.

Asshole.

I bite my lip to avoid sinking my teeth into his throat. Well, at least his head's still in the game. If he's focused enough to try and poke me right now then clearly his promise is one he intends to keep. But it's going to take serious therapy and maybe some hypnosis for me to forget the words I've just heard.


	4. Chapter 4

So now that I pay attention to being pregnant it feels fucking weird. Aside from the fact that I feel ready to regurgitate around the clock, insomnia, and an unsurprisingly intensified hatred of parsley and mutton, nothing really seems to have changed. But oh, shit, does Robb seem hellbent on winding me up.

"You're just glowing today," he says at the table during luncheon one day, taking my hand and pulling me closer to him. I fall onto his lap and he holds me close. I _know_ Talisa must be nowhere in sight because I'm fairly sure he's at least _that_ considerate. "Look at you. Glowing. I swear."

Yeah. I accidentally poured too much shimmer dust into my bath this morning. Plus the whole pregnancy thing does that to you.

"We're in public, Robb," I remind him, trying to get up.

But Robb won't have any of that. He doesn't let me go. I'm half tempted to smack his face with his plate, but I noticed he's been trying harder to rile me up since Hurricane Talisa rolled into Winterfell. He's distracting himself from her. Well, that's _one _way to do it. So I guess that I can help the guy out by not throwing something heavy at his head. Plus I kind of only do that when we're alone.

"I know," he groans, his hand getting closer and closer to my ass. "But you're _glowing_."

"And we're in _public_," I say again, tugging at his fingers to try and unlatch myself from him. "Get your hands off me, the _whole_ hall can see us."

"They're so jealous," he says into my ear. "You've made me the envy of the entire northern kingdom, you know. The way you glow…"

"Get your hands off me before I vomit all over you," I say flatly. "I will do it, gingersnap."

He chuckles and releases me. I walk out of the Great Hall quickly. I need to find him a therapist or something. This is getting out of hand and he needs an outlet other than me to relieve his Talisa related stress.

I saw her once since she arrived. Yesterday afternoon, while I was getting some air with Brienne and the girls. You know what's funny? The lung-freezing air actually helps me feel less queasy. Probably because one whiff of it is enough to freeze my stomach lining solid. Anyways, where was I? Oh yeah—she was on her way to the infirmary by the Maester's Tower and that was when our eyes locked.

I'm not gonna sugarcoat it—I've been in less awkward positions. Like my wedding night and basically every night since then to name a few. We all just stopped and she sank into this curtsey and it was when she looked at me that I realized there was an awful lot I wanted to say to her.

Your boyfriend is a dumbass. I hope you wouldn't have minded a brass bathtub. This guy fucks like a rabbit. The in-laws are annoying. The council is even worse. I'm pretty sure you don't know much about building so these people probably would have chewed you out. Being the queen in the north sucks. BTW—just a fun fact between us girls—I'm pregnant. And no—being the overly charitable, do-gooder type isn't gonna be enough to win these people over because they're colder than the gut-crystallizing air they breathe.

"I'm certainly glad to see you again, Lady Talisa," I said to her.

"I'm certainly glad to see you as well, my queen," she said back.

And…that was it. Haven't seen her since. Shame, though. Something about being around her makes me feel really good about myself. Even though from basically every single angle, _I'm_ the one who got the butt end of this whole thing. Yeah, yeah, she lost the guy—but if you ask me, she dodged an arrow. A poison-tipped arrow. A _flaming_ poison-tipped arrow. Part of me secretly wishes I could just get her and Robb together so she can see what it is the Gods loved her enough to protect her from, but I know it won't work because Robb is really bent on keeping his promise.

I'm so lost in my thought that I almost bump into someone and I don't even notice it until Brienne is calling out 'Your Grace'.

I pause, looking up at this great offender.

"A thousand pardons, Your Grace," says the weirdest voice I've ever heard. "I'm hardly watching where I'm going these days."

His voice sounds like how a person sounds when they're battling three deadly allergies, a searing hot fever, hives and a two headed boar. I didn't think it was even possible for someone's voice to sound so freaky. But this is Winterfell, generally accepted place for Phreaky Shit to happen, so I'm hardly surprised. Just intrigued.

"No trouble," I say, shaking my head. I've never seen this guy before. I think I'd remember if I did. Darkish hair, narrow, squinted brown eyes, skinny as hell. The guy looks like a talking chicken bone. "I don't recognize you."

"I only just arrived with Ser Lanagan. I'm one of the trainees from Ironrath."

"Aren't you a little young to be a trainee?"

"Aren't you a little young to be a queen?" he asks back, and then his eyes shut tightly. "I'm terribly sorry, Your Grace. It's a bad habit."

Well, wasn't that rude? But to tell the truth I'm just interested. "Again—no trouble. What's your name, trainee?"

"Hogarth, Your Grace."

_What_?

"Well, Master…Hogarth…"

"Laugh if it pleases you," he says, waving it off. "My mother swears she loves me, though."

"I certainly hope so," I say.

Wait…I _don't_ think I was supposed to say that out loud. I blink a couple of times to refresh my thoughts and my eyes fall on the poorly rolled up pages in his hand. One of them has a bunch of numbers scribbled onto it. Arithmetic. Very _advanced_ Arithmetic.

"Is that…?" I drift off, narrowing my eyes to get a better look. He holds up the pages and unrolls one for me.

"It's nothing," he says as I take a closer look. Not entirely nothing, Hogarth. I know my blueprints when I see them, and this is a copy of my structural sketches for the observatory…_with_ a few additions inked in.

"Did you add these yourself?" I ask.

"I did," he says. "They're only notes."

"They're good ones," I say. And I'm serious. They are. There are little points and details inked into the corners and sides that I can't deny would probably make the place better. "I don't know much about observatories…I suppose I only put in what could cover the basics. These will be welcome for review in the council."

"Oh no, I wasn't planning on submitting them," he says. "But—if you'd present them…then I suppose that'd be awfully kind of Your Grace. Except they're not entirely complete yet."

"Well—finish them up and have them sent over," I say, rolling up the page and handing it back to him. "I'll be waiting. It was a pleasure to meet you…Master Hogarth."

"The pleasure is mine," he says, sinking into a clumsy bow and running his ink-stained fingers through his hair before walking off.

Because I believe in the Seven and the old gods, I wait until we've turned the corner until I'm laughing at the guy. Who in their right mind looks at an infant and thinks '_I'll name him Hogarth_'?

But those sketches…well, I can't deny that they're good ideas, those little notes I saw. And how long has it been since I've been around anyone whose promise with this sort of thing could equal my own?

'_Aren't you a little young to be a queen?'_

Rude. But funny. This is the sort of smart mouth that you just _know_ spent most of his childhood getting spanked on the ass. Hm.

Robb comes into the bedchambers a little while after I do, and his eyes are sort of tired. He doesn't say much, and I'm not too keen on knowing what it is he's just dealt with in the ten or so minutes between our last conversation and now, but I'm guessing a certain healer from Volantis might have had some hand in it.

See? Some promises are just easier made than kept.

"Are you okay?" I ask him.

He sits down on the chair by the fire and rubs his face with his hands, nodding slowly.

"Yeah," he says. He smiles at me. "Get over here, honey-tits," he adds, Bait Voice strong.

I glare at him, pick up my pendant, and chuck it at his head. It misses. He laughs for a half an hour.


	5. Chapter 5

Meetings are the _worst_. They've gotten slightly better because Ser Garret doesn't chase down every word I say with a gulp of wine now that Robb is around. But to clarify one very true point: they still _suck_. And they _especially_ suck when they're held to discuss things that are completely and utterly irrelevant to the actual kingdom. Do I care about a rogue band of bandits on the Kingsroad cutting through the border? Do I care about a farmer finding three hundred unowned sheep on his land one morning? Do I care about the falling price of sulfur? You bet your ass I don't, but meetings are still going to be held to discuss these things, and that means that Mira and Julia have to coordinate my schedule so that at least one hour every day is free just in case the council is called to sit at a table and drink wine while we talk about stupid things that could have been solved by a two year old with brain rot or something that could have easily been told to me via a simple _note_.

Also the room smells like wood smoke, which in general is a smell that I don't really like during the daylight hours.

Today's pointless meeting is called in the late afternoon, and the culprit is Catelyn. Now my tolerance for this lady's constantly feeding me advice that I never use and hyper-analyzing my every step notwithstanding, I'm sort of willing to forgive her for this act of treachery because in truth I had been hoping that a meeting would be called. That skinny freak Hogarth sent me his sketches and I didn't bother going to see Stonemaster Edmund about it because I knew someone was going to call a meeting sooner or later.

The subject of today's officially sanctioned Whine and Bitch session is this roll of pages in Catelyn's hand. Everyone takes their seats slowly, inhaling deeply, making sure the air is clear before they settle in. They're just antsy because most of them are still sort of worried that I'll hotbox the chambers again. Although I have no intention of ever doing that again, it's good to know I put the fear of the Gods in these people. I wonder what they'd do if they knew I once smoked up in the Godswood.

Now council meetings are a total nightmare and I feel this way for a reason. First, everyone takes turns talking about their various health concerns. Then, they all take turns offering each other drinks. Then, they stop to gossip about something really stupid and insipid, like the new Septa that is scheduled to arrive sometime this week or how the soldiers in the barracks are just _so_ happy with their new quarters.

So interesting. Tell me more.

"I received word from Highgarden," Catelyn says, getting down to business at last. "A letter from Arya."

"How are our princesses doing in the Reach?" asks Lord Bryndon.

"Very well," Catelyn says. "But Arya has gotten word of our deal with Lord Walder. The…other part of the arrangement."

Huh. I forgot there was another part of the deal. Robb marries a Frey daughter, Arya marries my brother Waldron. Well, I certainly hope Arya's got a strong stomach.

"How did she hear of it all the way over there?" asks Edmure.

"Well…as it happens, Aradel Frey had a hand in it," Catelyn says.

"Aradel?" I repeat. "What did she do?"

"She arrived at Highgarden nearly a month ago and encountered my daughters there," Catelyn says. "Arya is…displeased with the match and the manner in which it was arranged."

"I knew she'd hate it," Robb says. "What did she say?"

And Catelyn holds up the rolls of paper and puts them in the center of the table before us. I count four pages—definitely back to back—and all I can see is the words '_fuck_', _'hell no_', '_bullshit_', and '_behind my back_' before I realize that as far as Arya's concerned, this shit ain't gonna fly.

A gust of wind blows in from the window and ruffles the pages. I get a look at a small part of the last line, which reads '_tell Robb to fuck Waldron Frey himself'_. She signed it '_love, Arya_'.

"She simply _refuse_s to cooperate," Catelyn says. "And I'm afraid that nothing I've done or said to her so far has been enough to sway her."

"What of her sister, Lady Tyrell?" asks Ser Garret. "Surely she'd be able to talk some sense into her."

"Sansa stands with Arya on this," Catelyn says. "I got word from her earlier this week. She'll not hear of letting Arya out of her sight."

"We can hardly blame them," Edmure says. "They've been through a great deal apart. They'd want to stay together."

"But our word to Walder Frey must be honored in _full_," Catelyn says.

She sighs, and I get it. She's torn. She wants to keep her promise, but she secretly hopes there's some way she can weasel Arya out of this deal so she and Sansa can stay together in Highgarden. Bringing Arya to the Riverlands as Waldron's wife will mean she's _that_ much closer to Catelyn—and I know they haven't seen each other in a long while—but Catelyn will happily never see her again if it means that the girls don't have to part ways.

So…yeah, my brain immediately has an idea and I suppose it wouldn't hurt for me to say it. It would require very little effort on my part anyways and it would mean the _world_ to Catelyn. I guess that I don't mind having an IOU in my pocket—_especially_ if that IOU's return address is the Riverlands-born lady who shoved all of Winterfell into her asshole during the last two decades.

"I understand Arya's frustration with unwittingly being pushed into such an arrangement," I say. And every eye falls on me. Shit. No turning back now. "And I understand Sansa's worries as well—I know how it feels to be a stranger in a strange land. They'll be better around each other. There's no reason to be separating them. I say leave Arya be."

"That's very sweet of you, my dear," Catelyn says. "But your father might not feel the same way."

Father already has a king as a son in law. What'll he do with a third born Stark as a daughter in law? "My Father can be tempted with another pact—another match. Someone else to wed a member of the family."

And _this_ is the fun part. I get to watch these people squirm in the awkward (for _them_, not me) silence as they all look around, trying to figure out which one of them will be the unlucky one to be bound and shackled in (un)holy matrimony to a member of House Frey. But they can't hesitate for too long, because I'm right here in front of them and most of them don't want me to know how they really feel about this.

So who wants to go to hell/get hitched?

The silence lasts about thirty seconds. Catelyn being Catelyn—and also slightly desperate to keep Arya and Sansa together—is the first to talk.

"Edmure," she says almost breathlessly.

If this situation wasn't so serious I'd have burst out laughing. And not the pretty kind of laugh, either. The kind of cackle that comes out of the witch that you just _know_ when you first hear of her is going to die a convoluted death.

Edmure gives Catelyn this look—and because he's polite he subdues it for my sake—but it's pretty obvious he'd rather have his dick hacked at with a rusty saw than stick it in a Frey Girl. He keeps his mouth shut tight and glances around the entire room before he exhales discreetly and forces a smile on his face.

"I'd be honored to take a Frey bride," he says. Or chokes—I can't be too sure.

"Excellent," Robb says. "The Crown won't soon forget this great service you've done."

Translation? That Frey Girl you marry is gonna rip you a brand spankin' new asshole, but I'll be ready to shove it full of gold for your heroic sacrifice.

Like Robb's forgotten that _he's_ married to a Frey Girl himself and last I checked, his wife was the only person in need of someone to give her due compensation for stumbling straight into the abyss. Jackass.

"You'll have a hard time selecting one," Catelyn says, and you can tell she doesn't give half a fuck either way—she's just glad her bouncing baby girl is out of the storm. "They're such a _wonderful_ bunch."

Ain't that the truth?

"I'm sure that if they're anything like our darling queen," Edmure says, directing his constipated smile at me. "Then I'm a terribly lucky man, indeed."

"I wonder if Lord Walder will consent to this change in arrangement?" Robb asks aloud. It doesn't take too long for me to notice that every single eye in the chamber is on me again.

To be totally honest, I'm not sure Father would be too thrilled. But his mind can be changed. And I suppose I can change it for him. I mean—I figured that if I suggested the switch that _I'd_ be the one to organize it since I generally end up cleaning up every mess that requires a meeting. And I know there's a sixty percent probability Father will agree to these terms on his own, and those odds will go nowhere but up if he gets a letter from me swaying his decision. If I wasn't absolutely sure of that, then I'd never have suggested the idea. And I only ever deal in absolutes.

"Let _me_ worry about my Father," I say. "He will consent."

"Brilliant," Catelyn says. "Now which to wed him to…?"

"Perhaps Madame Israel ought to be the judge of that," suggests Lord Bryndon. "Since she certainly has a deeper understanding of her sisters than anyone else here."

"Quite right you are, uncle," Robb says. "Israel—who would you suggest for my Uncle Edmure?"

And again—all eyes here are on me.

Well, _this_ is certainly interesting. I'd counted on organizing the whole thing, but I didn't expect to choose the bride as well. I had been calculating which one would be chosen based on the Five Key Factors: Beauty, Fertility, Politics, Manners, and Practicality. But if _I'm_ the one choosing—well, I certainly don't give a damn about any of those.

Which one, then?

Well, let's think honestly here. Whichever one of my sisters marries Edmure will be living in Riverrun, but she'll be spending an awful lot of time here in Winterfell. So I won't be the only Frey Girl in this half frozen shithole maybe forty percent of the time. So whichever one of them that I pick has to be fucking amazing because I need her to reinforce the image of House Frey that I've been trying to convey to these horse butts.

I'd get Aradel or Reina, but to tell the truth I'm a little weary of them. While they're both sort of 'okay' options, either one of them can be pretty catty and I don't want people to backtrack on all the progress I've made reputation-wise by giving them any reason to think that their queen is a shallow, spoiled bitch. Shame, though. They're fucking beautiful and I really wish I could have chosen either of them—if only to banish everyone's theory that everything coming out of House Frey is either ugly or sporting genital warts.

Bria is a sweet girl. And normally I would have chosen her, but I recently discovered evidence to suggest that she might not be as fertile as her mother since I turned out to be more fertile than mine, so I'll have to cross her out. She's nice once you get to know her, but she's boring as fuck and I kind of like Edmure so I'd ideally set him up with someone that won't bore _his boredom_ out of its skull. And then, of course, there's that _other_ little issue. Bria has…sleeping problems. I can imagine Edmure awakening at some point in the night to find her sitting bolt upright, eyes wide open, staring dead at him watching him sleep. I've been on the receiving end of that before, and let me tell you—it's fucking _creepy_.

Walda is a no-go. It's not because she's the size of a house. Really. Her weight has absolutely nothing to do with it. It's actually because of the fact that since neither Reina nor Aradel is going to be the one, then they're going to need her there at the Twins to keep things sane. Walda's the only one of us that has ever been able to consistently host peace talks between them when the proverbial arrows start to fly—which you should know happens quite fucking often. If I choose her, then I'd give it about eleven minutes before Reina and Aradel have started a fight that escalates until the Twins are burning to the ground.

If Walda's out of the question, then Rhea and Jaclyn are off the table as well. Rhea is too attached to Walda and I'd never _dare_ try to separate them. Rhea is still young—barely fifteen—and she needs someone to look up to. Definitely not gonna be me. I'm not role model material. Walda adores Reina—basically raised her—and there's no way in Hell I'd ever try to compromise Rhea's peace of mind by sending her off to Riverrun. Of course there's also the minor issue of this…unsettling obsession she has with voyeurism. I'm not sure what gives Edmure his kicks, but I'm fairly sure it's not the idea of an audience of twelve on their wedding night.

Jaclyn would probably be a good choice. She's sort of pretty in a simple way and she's nice enough. But Gods—her feather brain can't process the simplest trains of thought. Edmure is likely to fling himself from the observatory tower when he sits beside her at the wedding feast and realizes that his bride can't string a sentence together.

Marlow could work. She could. She's really pretty. And she's smart enough to get by. But if Edmure's hoping for a sweet, demure little virgin then I'll probably have to pass on her because to tell you the truth Marlow's been around the block a couple dozen times. But her mother had also been like that from what Waldra tells me, and apparently she tricked Father on their wedding night by waiting until he fell asleep, then spilling goat blood onto the sheets. So maybe she could work…except…oh, wait. She's got this kink for dwarves and I don't think a six foot tall Tully might appeal to her base needs.

Lucyan would make a great match for him—at least I think she would. I can't be too sure if they'd be compatible or not because you see I'm more interested in seeing how the hell Edmure could keep up with being married to her. She's got this rebellious streak and mind-blowing insecurity issues. It's made her do all sorts of things. Like Marlow, she's a free-loving girl. That wouldn't bother me, except she does her loving with a twist. Like this one time last year, she went on a rampage where she interrupted her hookups so she could stick her fingers into the assholes of every man she slept with so she could feel superior. The good news is that none of them ever wrote her off as a flimsy little piece of porcelain again. The bad news is that none of them went _near_ her again. I can imagine—with some humor—Edmure getting married to a girl like that. But Edmure is one of the most loyal passengers aboard the Israel wagon. In fact, he was on board before I even said my vows. No way in _hell_ would I subject him to being probed nightly and becoming the subject of Lucyan's misdirected sentiments.

That only leaves one serious option. I smile instantly when I think of her. I can't believe I didn't think of her before.

"Roslin," I say. "You'll like her, Lord Edmure. She and I are…cut from the same cloth."

It's true. Roslin's pretty as a flower. She's a sweet thing, too. And she's thoughtful. Yes—she'll do perfectly.

The meeting ends close afterwards, and I wave Stonemaster Edmund and Ser Garret over quickly before they can leave.

"What can I do for Your Grace?" asks Stonemaster Edmund.

"It's about the observatory," I say, pulling out Hogarth's drawings and unrolling them. "These were sent to my chambers earlier today and I was thinking that we really ought to consider them."

Ser Garret is already draining his glass. I want to stab him with a letter opener.

"Perhaps we could," Stonemaster Edmund says, pulling the pages closer. "Did you do these yourself?"

"No, they were suggested by a friend," I say.

"Well, I suppose we could show them to the appropriate craftsmen," Stonemaster Edmund says, rolling them up and tucking them under his arm. "I'll have an estimate report in the king's study by tonight."

"Lovely," I say, smiling at them both. "I'll see you at dinner."

I'm stunned. Even the _mention_ of dinner is enough to make me queasy now. I'm already out the door when it attacks me. I have to pause against the wall, counting down from ten and inhaling deeply to collect myself. Brienne, who has been faithfully waiting by the door, steps forward. I hold up my hand.

"I'm fine," I say to her.

"Can you believe this?" Ser Garret's voice asks from inside the chamber. "One Frey girl wasn't enough—now we're getting another?"

"I suppose I had my reservations when Robb first married," Edmund's voice replies. "But the girl's done well—no denying it."

"But are you willing to deal with _two_?"

"I—well—I guess they'd be sort of a posse, wouldn't they?"

That's right, assholes. One Frey Girl, you might have been able to bully, but _two_? I highly fucking doubt it.


	6. Chapter 6

Stonemaster Edmund is a two faced heathen, but I can count on him to come through for me whenever I need him to regardless of how grudgingly he does so. The observatory sketches are cleared and sealed, and a team of masons and wood carvers are ready and waiting in the tower when I arrive in the morning. I'm surprisingly not queasy at all this morning. But hell—I'm hungry. As fuck. I guess it makes sense. I'm sort of eating for two. So I tell Julia to have my breakfast brought around to me as soon as I've talked things through with the craftsmen.

"I didn't think any of this would get done so quickly," Hogarth says bemusedly as he looks around at the workers. "It's good to know there's a person in Winterfell who can actually show up to work every day."

Ha. Oh…wait. He's saying that to me. Hm. Funny. That's a compliment. And not one that's tainted by adding the bitter '_for a Frey Girl_'. I think I like this Hogarth guy a lot better now. His name is weird as hell but he's appreciative and that redeems him of his mother's curse.

"Well, you did your part, too," I say. "It can't have been easy being interviewed by Ser Garret and Stonemaster Edmund once they got wind of you having drawn out the plans."

"Ser Garret is an asshole," he says.

Tell me what you _really_ think.

"Uh…_huh_."

"I'm sorry," he says, closing his eyes and shaking his head. "I'm terribly sorry, Your Grace. It's a _really_ bad habit."

"Speaking your mind isn't always something to be ashamed of," I tell him. To tell the truth, I don't mind it at all. I don't know too many guys who say exactly what they're thinking. Much less guys whose wavelengths flow similarly to mine. "He _is_ awful, isn't he? Robb and I think he's greasy."

"He's repulsive," Hogarth says. "A toerag—_shit_," he closes his eyes tighter, mentally reprimanding himself for another slip up. "I mean—sorry."

"It's fine," I say. "He _is_ a toerag. And I don't suppose his brother Stonemaster Edmund left a much better impression on you?"

"They're related?" he asks. "So they're _not_ fucking? I mean—_sorry_."

"No, they're not related, I meant it like '_brothers in arms_'—wait—you thought they were…_together_?"

"Well…I got the impression that they were when I talked to them."

"When was this?"

"Yesterday," he says, pausing to jot something down on his paper. "They summoned me to talk about the plans and then they threw me out while they '_discussed_' my ideas. They were in there for nearly four hours. I thought they might have been going at it."

"Four hours?"

"Four. I counted."

"Oh, Gods. I would never have guessed."

"Though perhaps we can't jump to conclusions," he says. "I mean—there's not nearly enough evidence to suggest they _are_ together."

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"Well…Ser Garret is always in a foul mood. Drinking all the time and being such a headless cock—_sorry_."

"Go on."

"Well…don't you think that if he and Stonemaster Edmund were swallowing swords that he'd maybe be in a better mood once in a while? I've never met a man who's had a harder time smiling."

"Well…he typically prefers to smile at the misfortune of others," I say. "Unfortunately, Ser Garret was raised by a pack of wolves."

"No, I suppose it's simply because he was raised here in this den of _dire_wolves," Hogarth shuts his eyes tightly. "I'm so terribly sorry for that. I meant—"

"It's fine, it's fine," I say, waving it off. And it is. This guy is ridiculous. He's a breath of fresh air.

"Master Hogarth," one of the craftsmen calls, holding up several metal fillings. "Shall I begin arranging the outer rim?"

"No, wait until tonight," he tells him. "I'll be here and we can do it properly. I need to get a look at the angles first so we don't block out the view of a single star."

"Yes, sir. My Queen," the man tips his head and turns away.

"You're returning tonight?" I ask.

"I'm here every night," he says. "I want this all over and done with. If I take too long I'll have to talk it through again with that pair of boobs—_sorry_—and I've no interest in seeing either of them again for a long, long time."

"If only I were as lucky as you," I say. "To be able to avoid them."

Hogarth gives me this look like I'm an orphan who's just lost her entire family in a hurricane. It's the pity in his eyes that helps me to realize this guy hates that pair of _boobs_ more than I do.

Robb's already at the table when I get to the Great Hall for dinner tonight. He's got this really weird look on his face, like he's got indigestion or the pox or maybe both. And I can easily guess at where his eyes are—she's got to be there _somewhere_ in that crowd. But who cares? Someone just outwardly called Ser Garret an asshole. So I'm not the only one who would use that word. I mean—the farthest Robb ever went to badmouthing him was calling him _greasy_. Always made me feel really catty at our Wine and Bitch sessions when I'd be sitting there contemplating how best to murder the guy and then Robb would just nod and say '_yeah, he sucks_'. I don't appreciate feeling like I've jumped to conclusions. And this guy just proved that I'm not the only person here who has a bone to pick with half the council. I feel something close to free right now.

"You glow brighter and brighter every time I see you," Robb says as I take my seat beside him.

Spare me, honey bunches. My friend Hogarth just called one of your councilmen an asshole. I'm in too good a mood to hear your voice.

Hogarth shows up to dinner pretty late. He catches my eye and smiles briefly before he takes a seat in the far back next to Ser Brixby and digs into his food. I notice that Talisa is curiously absent from the room now that I bother to look for her. Which is weird because Robb must have had that weird look on his face for _something_. So he's just got the pox, then? Um…don't think that'd be a very good thing for this munchkin. Better shift my chair over an inch or two.

Robb seems to awaken again as I angle myself away from him. He kisses my forehead and gets to his feet.

"Calling it a night already?" I ask.

"I'm tired," he says.

That's out of character for him. But hang on—Talisa's not here. So he probably really is headed to bed, just not _our_ bed.

Well, don't make too much noise sneaking back into our chambers later. I need my beauty sleep.

I turn back to my food and swallow another forkful of potato, but Robb's tugging my hand.

"What?"

"Come with me," he says.

I don't do threesomes, gingersnap. Or…wait. You want me to tuck you in?

"Alright," I drop my fork and let him lead me out of the Great Hall. "What's wrong?" I ask him.

"I need wine," he says.

"So you decide to leave the Great Hall, where there's wine aplenty," I nod. "That makes perfect sense."

"No, I mean—I need _wine_."

Oh. Like Wine and Bitch. Well, whatever floats your boat, Red. I nod again, hurrying my pace, and we turn the corner and nearly bump into—who else?—Talisa.

Well, Robb, you're _definitely_ gonna need some wine now. But you know what's funny? Of all the people that we could have bumped into en route back to our chambers, it just _had_ to be her. They both just freeze for a minute, eyes locked, taking each other in like they _haven't_ actually faced each other a million times since she got here—mostly at night.

We're all silent. I'm sure as hell not gonna say anything. But neither of _them_ are interested in saying anything, either. Well, if no one's gonna talk and we're just gonna sit here staring at each other then can I go back to the Great Hall and finish my potato?

Reina used to read us romance stories when I was little. We used to go outside and sit under the apple trees and listen to her talk of handsome heroes and pretty, good young girls and I'd have to choke it all down and pretend that the hero dying at the end wasn't the most interesting thing in the whole damn book.

But you know what always snagged me about those stupid stories? The bit about looking into each other's eyes. Literally what the _fuck_ could you hope to see in someone's eyes? The stories always talked about seeing love and words and stuff and call me shallow as a puddle but I've never seen that.

You know what I _have _seen? I've seen emotions in a person's eyebrows. The way they arch upward or downward or curve or zigzag or diagonally or whatever. That can relay emotion, and here in Winterfell people's eyes usually have a helluva lot of mixed emotions towards me.

Eyebrows, I understand. If those romance books meant eyebrows, then I'm totally onboard. But eyes…just no. They're literally eyes. Just _eyes_. That's it. And the worst part about that is that everyone's eyes look _exactly the fucking same_. White with a circular strip of some random color and a little black dot in the center. So hang on, honey—let's go to the beach and light ourselves a fire and sit by the water and watch the blindingly bright sun go down and stare into each other's canvases of white with a circular strip of some random color and a little black dot in the center and then be consumed by the moment and let it escalate until we're fucking like apes on the shoreline.

How _romantic_.

So knowing as little as I do about the covert magic of romantic eye contact, it goes without saying that I have no patience for this shit. And I'd tell Robb to speed up the process because I have better things to do with my time than watch him and Talisa Maegyr chart the constellations in each other's eye sockets, but the problem is that that would actually be really fucking rude and I happen to_ like_ Talisa Maegyr. And then there's one other little thing that occurs to me—but only just now.

Robb and Talisa haven't even spoken since she got here. And I don't mean it like they've been too busy taking a Winterfell Sex Tour to say three words to each other. I mean like they literally have made absolutely positively _no contact_. Not even a quickie in a supply closet. I had thought that since she's been here for nearly a week now that maybe _something_ would have happened. I mean—Robb's spent every single night in our chambers since she got here. But I've been sleeping a little heavier since he put this biscuit in my oven so I kept on thinking that maybe he's been sneaking out while I was asleep. I even held off on poisoning him with the wolfblossom seeds because I didn't want him to have erectile dysfunction while canoodling with his lady love. See? I'm a team player. And then I thought that if he doesn't sneak out at night, then he's got lots of time during the day to see her. I mean—I sort of drew a line in the sand that night I freaked out in the forest and he seems to understand that he has to limit his contact with me when the sun is still up. So if he's not around me then he has to be _somewhere_, right?

Well, it's finally dawned on me that that _somewhere_ has clearly not been inside of this girl, because their faces (not their eyes) say it all. This is the first time they've actually been closer than ten feet to each other since the last time they rolled around in the woods or wherever they liked to get hot. And I'm not sure what it is about their body language that specifically makes it clear to me, but Robb is squeezing my hand tighter as he looks at her and I know that this guy is trying _very_ hard to keep his promise.

Well, hell. I'd have been almost moved by this dedication if they weren't _still looking at each other._

Alright, Talisa's gotten slightly paler. And Robb cut his hair. Talisa's gotten a new cape. Robb's been shaving. Okay, there it is—a comprehensive breakdown of basically everything that's happened to the both of you since the last time you fucked under a log. Can we move on now? I'm seriously annoyed just standing here and Robb's going to break my fingers if he squeezes any tighter.

For just a second, Robb's mouth almost opens and I get the distinct impression that he wants to say something to her. And you know what? I'm pretty interested in whatever it is he's planning on saying to her. I'm actually _really_ interested in whatever it is he's planning on saying to her. Should have brought my plate with me—I could have had dinner _and_ a show.

Robb's hand jerks a bit and his grip tightens for a split second where I think _this is it, goodbye left hand_ before his grip suddenly slackens until it's just enough to pull me closer to himself. I can guess at his wavelength right now. Reminding himself that I'm here.

Oh no, don't mind me—it was getting to the good part.

"Lady Maegyr," he tips his head to her. She seems to snap back to reality too. Fucking finally. Welcome back to the dimension, dumbasses.

"Your Grace," she sinks into a curtsey. "My queen," she adds in my direction.

"Nice to see you again, Lady Talisa," I toss over my shoulder because Robb's dragging me away before I can get it in properly.

Robb suddenly doesn't feel too sharing tonight, so Wine and Bitch just ends up being Wine. He's staring into literally nothing until we're both tucked into bed and the only noises we can hear are Grey Wind and Demon's steady breathing by the fireplace.

"Are you alright?" his voice asks after a while.

Um…not really. I was close to falling asleep and now I have to lull myself under all over again.

"Why?"

"I just…I'm sorry for that. Back there. I didn't think that it'd be so…difficult."

"I'm sure you didn't."

"I meant it when I made you that promise."

"I'm sure you did."

"Don't be cross with me."

"I'm not cross with you."

"You are."

"I'm not. Do I sound cross?"

"You say one thing but you always feel the other," he says. "I'm wise to this act. But I can do it, you know—the both of us can."

"Mm-hm."

Rules of pregnancy: eat when you're hungry, sleep when you're tired. You want this thing to live to the second trimester than you'd better shut the fuck up and let me get some shuteye.

But it's as I'm falling back asleep that a very interesting thought occurs to me. Robb hasn't fucked Talisa. Not since she got here. And he definitely hasn't been fucking _me_, because I was convinced he was fucking _her_, but now that I know that he's not, then that means that—

Gods above. Robb Stark has not fucked anything in seven days. Seven _consecutive_ days. And he hasn't said a _word_ about it.

Oh my holy days and nights. This has _got_ to be recorded somewhere. I'll write it into my sketchbook until I get my hands on a journal or something. But until then, I roll over and kiss his cheek. He smiles at me.

"I believe in you," I say to him. I believe in the fact that you can abstain for a week. I'm so _proud _of you, Rebel King Husband.

He takes this as encouragement to hold me close to him tonight. I don't mind. If Little Robb has stayed in his breeches, then he's earned a cuddle.

Now let's see how long he can last, shall we?


	7. Chapter 7

Father once told us that he got crazy headaches if he didn't get action every night of the week. I always believed that this was his excuse to get laid as often as humanly possible, but I think now I'm starting to believe him.

Now I know that every guy is different. Some are twice a week guys, and some are twice a night guys. Robb and my Father may fall pretty close to each other in this category, but I do grudgingly confess that the backwater gingersnap has one thing my Father doesn't—self-control.

I know, I know. With all the public ass-tapping and groping that he does, self-control is one of the last things I'd ever use to describe Robb Stark. But the guy's surprised me—he's on a truly impressive abstinence streak. But since Robb is one of those rare creatures that could use every excuse to fuck someone/thing, aforementioned abstinence streak is seriously taking its toll on him.

So a Robb Stark that hasn't been fucked in thirteen days is twitchy. He's confused and frustrated and nervous and tense as hell. Any kind of human contact will be met with either coldness to rival the Long Winter or the hope and expectation of a stage five clinger. Yeah, I'm grateful that I don't have to sleep with him—partially because I've been nagging about it since I first married him but lately because this whole pregnancy thing has left me feeling really gross most of the time—but I think that _not_ sleeping with him is worse. I thought operating on Robb's sex schedule was hard? Operating _out_ of his schedule is even harder. He is suddenly nuzzling up with me, holding me, touching my hands and my arms and keeping me close enough so that the smell of wood smoke is basically embedded into my nostrils. Now this new schedule is weird and freaks me the fuck out especially because our arrangement is now null and void. The old deal—the terms of which state that he can fuck me bloody during the night as long as he stays the fuck away during the day—has all but flown out the window because now that he's not getting fucked at night I'm suddenly seeing his pasty prince-charming face everywhere and let me tell you—the married life has become a dark, _dark_ place.

In other news, I bought a white quill. I used it to write Robb's record setting thirteen days into my sketchbook. I think it goes without saying that I'm going to have to use it to pen my letter to Father because his response to this whole Edmure/Roslin thing isn't gonna be a good one. But Robb has taken me by surprise with his careful thoughtfulness—maybe something I can attribute to the fact that the guy has been sleeping blueballed for the past two weeks.

"Your brother Olyvar will act as a negotiator for your Father and I," Robb says.

"Olyvar?" I had been alarmed, and rightly so. Olyvar is not the sort of guy you trust with things like these. He's not the sort of guy you trust with _anything_.

"He'll be coming to Winterfell as my squire shortly," Robb says. "So I thought for the sake of being efficient, we'll just have him settle the terms."

Of course I'm not going to tell him right away that choosing Olyvar to settle something this big would be the equivalent of…something equally horrible…selling your soul to the devil or perhaps willingly bathing in a brass bathtub. Because I'm not entirely sure he'd hear me if I said it. You see, Robb hasn't been sleeping properly lately. He spends most of the night rubbing up against me like he's nuzzling for warmth or something and then he crawls out of bed at sunrise to ride a little and then he returns half dead and ready to take on the grave/day.

I didn't give a shit in the beginning because I slept wonderfully. But now I'm getting further and further along with this little piglet roasting in my gut which is sort of making it harder for me to fall asleep, so I just keep my eyes closed through most of the nights and pretend that I can't feel Robb nuzzling or adjusting himself or holding me close.

And he looks _gross_. His hair's growing out and his skin's getting paler, which I didn't even believe was possible until I took a really good look at him a few days ago. He's got bags under his eyes that are starting to darken and that's not even the worst part. I can handle the lack of sleep and the growing out curls and the bags under his eyes and the weird, funked out schedule of his but I physically _cannot_ handle _this_:

He's stopped shaving.

Gods preserve me, the boy has stopped shaving. And now he's got prickly ginger hairs growing on his pasty ginger face and when he nuzzles up against me at night it's fucking scratchy and now there's this irritated spot on the space between my neck and my shoulder where he likes to bury his face to fall asleep and I will gladly bathe in a brass bathtub and stop smoking Furrow bark and take every single whispered '_Frey girl_' that the world has to offer if it means this boy will pick up a razor and shave off that ginger stubble.

I try to take a leaf out of his book and make subtle moves to get it into his head that he needs to shave that thing off before the skin on my neck peels off, but there's only so much that I can do to turn his head in the right direction. Leaving a razor on his nightstand cannot take you very far. I pace the room whenever I'm alone, trying to figure out what it is that I have to do to salvage my skin from another prickly nuzzle when it occurs to me.

Dammit, I have _got_ to get this boy to sleep.

So now that I've figured out the actual problem, I am now presented with the even _bigger_ problem of trying to solve the first problem and _that_ is a problem in and of itself. Too many problems. I don't have enough years left in me for this shit.

I suppose maybe I could throw him and Talisa in a room together and then maybe lock the door. And this room could conveniently have a bed and lots of wine and maybe a minstrel or a harpist to set the mood. And then there could be curtains thicker than bread covering the windows so they could be in there for days without knowing. And then maybe there could conveniently also be penna bulb root tea or macau beans to send his sex drive through the roof—just to help them along.

Maybe.

But realistically thinking that's not fucking likely. Because if they haven't fucked by now then I'm dealing with some magical force much greater than I am. I've never even imagined it was possible for Robb to have so much determination _not_ to get laid. I almost feel bad for the guy.

Almost.

So option two: I drug him to the brink of death and let him pass the fuck out. It could work. It's certainly more realistic than the alternative, anyways.

I pour a few sips from my Kale flask into his wineglass tonight when he arrives for Wine and Bitch. I debate on it for a while before I elect to throw in a few drops of Nightshade to help it along. Now there's a faint bell going off in my head as I mix this concoction because I've seen it mixed before—back home at the Twins—and I can't remember the details of what happened or why I've got a bell going off but by the time I've gotten my memory even close to it Robb's already sitting down at the table.

"How was your day?" he asks when I pour some wine into the glass and push it towards him.

"Eventful," I say. "Father's response has arrived. As expected, he's disappointed. I'll be writing to him tomorrow morning. He'll see sense soon."

"How can you be sure?"

"Because another letter arrived from Highgarden," I say.

"Sansa?"

"No. Her husband, Ser Loras Tyrell."

"What did he want?"

"For me to inform my Father that Highgarden has no intention of letting Arya go. Apparently he takes his wife's happiness to heart, and he doesn't like to think of how devastated Sansa will be if she and Arya have to part ways."

"Your father wants a marriage with Arya, but the Tyrells refuse to cooperate? How does that make anything good for us?"

"Because now it's not our fault. I'm going to send my letter to my father along with Ser Loras' letter and he'll see that the situation is out of our hands. Inevitably, he'll agree to the match with Lord Edmure unless he's interested in riding to Highgarden himself and incurring the wrath of House Tyrell."

"Maybe," Robb says, taking a huge gulp from his glass. He frowns into it for a moment. Shit. Forgot how strong the flavor of Kale is.

"How about you?" I ask quickly. "What have you been up to?"

"Appointing the Kingsguard," he says, still staring into his cup. "Hey—is there some construction going on? I noticed an odd bunch of stonemasons by the base of the observatory tower."

"They're from the Glen," I say. "We're just doing some touch ups in that tower."

"I had first thought they'd be here for the orphanage. I think we should name it after Septa Eleanor. It was her idea, after all."

"We could."

Robb takes another gulp, and we're left in silence.

"You're awfully calm tonight," he says. "It's making me rather nervous."

"My calmness is making you nervous? Well, that just goes to show what sort of husband you are."

He smiles. "It's just that usually by now you're talking about how best to kill Ser Garret—stab him with a pitchfork or feed him to a mountain lion."

"Or cover him with honey and throw him into a pit of fire ants," I say.

His smile widens. "There we go. Back on track. Stick to the schedule, love—you frighten me when you're too calm."

"You'd rather have me shrieking at the top of my lungs?"

"I actually find your shrill screech to be more soothing."

"You're a terrible person."

He just gulps down half the glass, putting it down on the tabletop gingerly and letting me fill it up again. "I wonder if Sansa knows that her husband is a sword-swallower."

"Ser Loras Tyrell is a sword-swallower?"

"Complete flamer."

"Have you met him?"

"Only once. During their wedding. It was just after we took King's Landing. He was nice enough. Sensitive, you know? He'd have been perfect for her if he preferred women at all."

"Not all girls out there prefer sensitivity," I point out. "Take Arya, for example. If she's half as gritty as you say she is, then I think she was meant to marry my brother Waldron."

"Arya can't be bought on the promise of equality," Robb says. "She needs a connection. A reason to agree."

"True. Every girl has a price."

"What about you, then?" he asks. "What is your price?"

"Common sense," I say. "Stability."

"That's not a very high price," he says.

"You'd be surprised how many people out there are unable to afford it."

We're silent as I refill his cup. That's it, ginger. Drink up. Drink up and pass the hell out.

"Have you ever wanted to?" he asks after a while.

"To what?"

"To be in love."

"Not really."

"Never once?"

"Never."

"You've never even been _curious_ to know what all the fuss is about?"

"Nope. Why—have you? Like have you ever actually pursued it before…before Talisa?"

"Once or twice," he says. "Well…maybe more than that. I was always interested. In love with the idea of it—of love. It just seemed so…enchanting."

"I suppose it could seem that way," I say. "But I never got it."

"You've never _once_ met anyone who made your stomach funny?"

Not entirely. I interact with you on a regular basis and sometimes you make my stomach churn.

"Never once."

"You know something?" he says, yawning. Here we go. "Sometimes I feel like I should pity you…for never having been in love. But then I get to thinking about you—really _thinking_ about you—and I can't help but feel like you're in on some dark, perfect secret."

"A dark, perfect secret?"

"Hm. It's what I always liked about you, the first thing I noticed about you. You always have this look, like '_I know something you don't_'. It was always itching at me—from the minute I saw you—to just try and figure out what it is you're hiding."

"And what do you think it is?"

"It's what goes on in your head," he says. "Your mind is a dark, scary place. Who knows what secrets you carry?"

I just stare at him, drain my cup, and go to the bathroom. Robb's drunk—I can hear him singing—and I'll admit it's funny. He quiets down after a while, leaving me to bathe in peace. I'm out of the bath and pulling on my robe when I feel it. It's not a movement or a lurch or anything. It's sort of like…a warmth. And it comes from right there in my belly, and I know—I just _know_—it's the munchkin.

I just stand there by the tub for a few seconds, my hand on my stomach, trying to re-feel it to make sure, but I know where it came from and it feels weird. Really, really weird.

Don't stand around here with your hand on your stomach, Israel. Robb could come in and see you like this and then he'll know and you're not supposed to tell him until you're _positive_ that it's going to survive. That's it. Get into your nightgown. Go to your bed. Huh. Robb hasn't even bothered changing out of his clothes. He's smack on top of the furs—boots and all. Give him a poke, get him properly tucked in. Wake up, gingersnap.

"Robb," I shake his shoulder. No luck. "Robb," I call louder, shaking his shoulder harder. "Wake up, gingersnap."

I move his overgrown hair out of his eyes and pull back a single lid. One bright blue eye looks blankly at me. Huh. My reflection is weird in his eyes. I look wider at the waist. Stay focused, Israel.

"Rooooooooobbbbbbbbbb," I poke his cheek. Come on, you pasty teabag. "Robb, wake up. At least get changed first. Rooobbbbb?" No response. Robb has morphed into a training dummy. And then it hits me.

"Kale and nightshade couldn't be a worse combination," Maester Brandt told Father the one time I've ever seen anyone mix this stuff before. "Nightshade compounds the effects of Kale, makes you skip from drunkenness straight into poisoning. You're lucky your heart didn't stop."

Uh oh.

"Robb? Wake up," I slap his cheek.

Oh Israel, you've gone and _done_ it now. Open his fucking shirt. That's right. Check for a heartbeat. Oh my Gods, even his _chest _got paler. Focus, you idiot.

Okay. There's a heartbeat. He's steady. Breathing—fine. Pulse—fine. Temperature—fine.

"Robb?" I slap him again, this time as hard as I can.

He stirs, then turns over slowly. "Five more minutes," he says, hugging my pillow to himself. "I'll come back later."

Thank the Seven. I release a breath that I didn't even know I had been holding and collapse onto the bed beside him. My palm is still stinging with the force of the slap. I look at his face. His cheek is reddening. That's gonna leave a mark.

"Don't die on me, gingersnap," I tell him. "I didn't come this far to watch you die. And I definitely don't want your death on my conscience. You absolutely _cannot_ die on me."

"Hmm...hm."

Good enough. I blow out his candle and lay back, staring up at the ceiling. Given the recent change in my sleeping pattern, I know I'm not going to get any real shuteye. But I also know that with this scare still in my system, I'm clearly not going to get any _rest_ either. I sit up and huff tiredly.

First things first—I am _never_ going to poison Robb again. I don't care if it's Kale or wolfblossom seeds of just sprinkling salt onto his roast duck. I pick up the Kale flask and pull on my robe, heading out of the room.

My destination is the observatory tower, where I have a clear idea in my head what I'm going to do. It has to be done. If I don't do it here—now—like this—then I'll never do it and I'll be tempted to use the flask again and the next time I might actually end up killing him.

I reach the tower and stand out by the railing, open the flask, and empty the Kale out into the night. There we go. No one's gonna die now. A least not by _my_ hand.

"My dad would have jumped after it," says a voice.

I screech, turning around to face this creature that has dared attack me at this hour of the night. There's at least a dozen candles lit. I can't believe that I didn't notice it before. In the dim light, I can see the shadows cast on the face of that skinny freak of nature Hogarth.

"Sorry, sorry," he says as I lean back, inhaling sharply.

"Don't _ever_ do that again!" I say. "Wait—why would your dad have jumped after it?"

"Because he adored Kale," he tells me. "He loved it more than anything—more than any_one_."

"Well, it's more trouble than it's worth," I say, tossing the flask out after it. "Good riddance. It can really hurt people."

"I'll say. My dad went blind towards the end. All he did was drink Kale."

"It can do that to you."

"I wouldn't have expected to find the Queen in the North of all people carrying a flask of Kale on her."

"Yes well—the Queen in the North is still only human."

"I suppose," he says, shrugging and turning away. It's only then that I notice he's got a sketchbook of his own.

"What are you doing?"

"Charting," he says. "Or rather…trying to."

"Charting what?"

"That, my queen," he says, tipping to the sky above us with his pen. I look up at the sky. It's dark blue, dotted brilliantly with stars.

"I thought you were a trainee healer."

"I am," he says. "Though by training I'm an astronomer."

"Why on earth are you here as a healer, then?"

"Well, the observatory at Ironrath was stupid and I'd heard that one had recently been built here but when I asked for permission to come along Ser Lanagan said that he'd only be escorting healing trainees. So I volunteered to train. Except this observatory could use a bit of work before it's fit to be studied in."

"Sorry," I say. "I thought I had at least the basics."

"Goodness no, Your Grace—don't apologize," Hogarth says, shaking his head. "You've done better than a great many people expected from you. We'd been hearing whispers all along the route from Ironrath. The common people are singing praises for this great queen who healed the King's palace."

"Really? I'm not hearing anything like that here," I say.

"That's because _these _people are ungrateful shit," he says. "Sorry."

"It's fine. You're right, though—they are ungrateful. But it's good to know that the people out there are thankful."

"They're not just thankful," he says. "They're _adoring_. Especially after they got word of that orphanage being approved."

"I didn't know word could travel so quickly in a kingdom so vast."

"It can if you keep your ear to the ground," he says. "And I like to do that. Lady Maegyr says I should have been a spy or an eavesdropper. I suppose it'd be an odd profession. Far too shady for me."

"Do you know her well? Lady Maegyr?"

"Not very," he says. "But I like her. Something about her is just…reassuring. I suppose that's a good thing…when you're dying of some horrible disease and you need a ray of light…maybe a reassuring sort of person is medicine themselves."

"I like her, too."

"I didn't think that you would," he says. "Given her…past." Pause. His eyes shut tightly. "Oh gods protect me—I am _so_ sorry—"

"It's fine," I say. "I know exactly what used to go on between them."

"And you don't mind her being here? I—forgive me. I'm intruding—"

"Not at all. No, to be honest with you—I don't mind her being here. I know that I should—I _should_—but I just don't."

"You're not…worried?"

"Nope."

"Well, that's _one_ way to handle it. Not caring. I wouldn't have let her come here if I were you."

"That would have been terribly catty of me," I say.

"Well, maybe. But it would also have spared a lot of complication. Love is messy. It makes things polluted and difficult to see. It clouds the judgement. It's not that I think it's a bad thing—it's not. But a love like that—a love that can't exist being in a place where it shouldn't be—that's a bad love."

"I didn't think there was such thing as good and bad love," I say.

"There's a good and bad everything," he tells me. "But I never like to dwell on it too much. It's too confusing. Too hidden in the shadows. I don't like working with facts that I can't see right in front of me. Clear, precise truths."

"Truths?" I say.

He looks at me. "Truths. Because shades of gray are too murky, vague and unreliable, a select few of us prefer the blacks and whites. Like fundamentals or principles."

"Or absolutes," I say.

He nods. "I've always called them definitives. The blacks and whites. The definites. The complete, honest, real facts—not the grays or the confusing ifs or ands or maybes."

We're silent for a while, staring up at the sky and then looking back down at our own imperfect world. Just when I was starting to believe that I was the only person who dealt exclusively in absolutes.

"I didn't think that anyone else thought that way," I say.

"Neither did I," he says, smiling at me.


	8. Chapter 8

Robb doesn't have trouble sleeping again. Well, not like before. I'm pretty sure he gets in at least two or three hours because he's started shaving again, so my neck is safe. But I've learned my lesson. Never tipping anything into his wineglass again. He's all smiles at me for a while because he has no clue that I put him in a coma that night—and no way in _hell_ am I going to tell him. So I let the night drift off into memory, like the _Night Winter Came_ and that one time I almost burned Father's bedroom down while he was sleeping in it. Accident, by the way—that had been a total accident.

Speaking of Father, his response has arrived and just as I've guessed, he's grudgingly agreed to the match with Edmure and Roslin.

"He'll be telling Roslin himself," I say. "But she'd like a letter from me explaining it further. I'll write to her later."

"Yes," Robb doesn't seem to be hearing me. "Alright."

"You know, you really need to do something about your horse," I add. "He keeps trying to kill me."

"That's wonderful," he says, eyes still glued to the page in front of him.

"I've been considering shaving my head."

"Alright, then."

"I brought Demon into your study last week and he relieved himself on your chair."

"That's good."

"And I told your mother that you like boys."

And he's not even responding now. He's still and quiet.

"I poisoned you two weeks ago," I say.

"I'm going hunting tomorrow," he says.

"I'm going to die tomorrow," I say back.

He blinks at me. "What? Why?"

I get up and leave.

So the sleep might have solved the shaving problem, but he's still out of it. He needs to get Talisa out of his system and he needs to do it fast. Because people have started to notice that I'm putting on weight. True, I've gained back every last pound that I lost when I first got here, but I've noticed that I'm also building on top of that. My gowns are being let out one by one and it's not escaping anyone's notice.

"You're getting into excellent shape," Edmure tells me one morning.

"We've been enjoying the lemon cakes, haven't we?" Catelyn smiles as she clutches my arm, which I now notice has gotten maybe an inch thicker.

So I'm putting on weight. Which means I'm getting far. And I don't feel nauseous. And I've started sleeping through the night again. Which means that I am—in all likelihood—out of the woods. Which means that pretty soon, it'll be time to tell Robb. But really—how the hell do you tell someone something like that? I mean—we're just easing into that phase where we're talking about things that piss us off and stuff. But I can't sit on it forever.

And then there's the bigger realization—now that I'm out of the woods, then I'm _definitely_ gonna be a mom.

There's a ceremony in the next week that's held to honor the newly appointed Kingsguard. These people will hold a feast for just about anything. It's all fun and games because it means that you're a real boy/kingdom now—having a Kingsguard, a Queen, a newly finished Great Sept, and let's not forget our slightly out of it Rebel King. The slightly out of it Rebel King, by the way, has appeared to realize that he's gone twenty six days without fucking anything. He hasn't tried to break the streak with Talisa as far as I know—I'm pretty sure he hasn't been with her when you consider the fact that he's been oogling me like a snake about to swallow it's meal whole. Well, I'm the alligator that scratches your stomach lining and rips you in half, buddy. I don't go down the throat easily. But aside from his predatory tiger-in-tall-grass stares, he's been on good behavior. He still cuddles me like a fucking bunny rabbit, but at least he's shaving again.

Hogarth still hangs around the observatory tower every night, and I know this because whenever I'm not up for sleeping and go up there, he's sketching or smoking his pipe or staring at the stars. Sometimes we talk. Sometimes we don't. Sometimes we just sit there and wonder if it's possible to drown in a bathtub or debate how much it'd cost to have a mosaic tile bathtub in _green_ chips custom made in Pentos or the nutritional value of sheep stomach or sometimes just how to avoid going to the dungeons for murdering Ser Garret. To be honest, these talks help. They help more than Wine and Bitch does because Robb isn't all that bad I suppose but he just doesn't get it sometimes. It's all so easy for him. He's prince charming—handsome, eloquent, diplomatic, honorable, charming, passionate, kind, sensitive, clever, merry and flawless—and that's why he irks me so much. He was basically _born_ to be a king. He's the sort of person you look at and you just _know_ they were meant to do truly great things with their lives. And Hogarth? He's more like me—like the type of people who were lucky simply to have been born in the first place.

And thinking about the vast difference between Robb and Hogarth has got me thinking about the vast difference between Robb and _I_. Because there's a huge one, really. Robb is everything that a girl would wish for, and basically every girl in the kingdom is in love with him. But I can't bring myself to do that. I can't bring myself to love him—not that way. Because his perfection seems to be too unreal, too mythical, and instead of charming me, it's just got me poking around under the surface, looking for the catch. Looking for the weak spot, the shameful flaw that hides underneath all of that perfection. I'm trying hard to hate him, but it's just not working because he's not a bad person and I don't hate good people. He's got a funky sex drive and he's kind of a child sometimes, but he's a good person and that usually tends to redeem him.

So with all of this to recommend him, why the _hell_ would he choose me? I know one reason—I'm the practical choice. And when I had first married him, I had thought he was being practical. But he was not. Robb is a romantic—a romantic who had just broken his own heart, no less—and he wouldn't have settled to marry a girl because she designed an amazing tower. And regardless of what he said to me that day I almost killed him, I know him well enough to know now that he was flat out fucking lying when he said that he saw some 'dark, perfect secret' in my eyes because that's bullshit and you already know what I think about reading people's eyes.

And you know what's funny? I have never—not once—questioned Robb's reasons for choosing me. Never _once_. I've second guessed it—true. I've hated him for it—also true. But I never really stopped to ask myself just what it is that he saw in me during that week at the Twins that got me here. What did he see in me that he didn't see in Reina or Aradel—the most beautiful girls at the Twins? What did he think I could provide him that Rhea couldn't?

I'd stop to dwell on it, but this train of thought is getting awfully gray. And I don't work well with gray. And I know I said I'd step out into the gray area but not where something like _this _is concerned. So I'd best stop here and stick to the absolutes.

Here's an absolute: I encounter Talisa Maegyr again. This time there's no Robb nearby to make things awkward. So she just sinks into a curtsey and smiles at me and I get to smile at her and we're both just standing there smiling at each other like a pair of idiots and then I notice that she looks distantly like my sister Lucyan and I'm secretly wondering if Talisa ever stuck her fingers into Robb's asshole and then the mental image destroys my psyche so I shut down for a few seconds to recover, and in that few seconds, Robb turns the corner and finds us both there and that brings the mental image right back again and it totally floors me.

"Israel," he nods to me. "Lady Talisa."

"Your Grace," Talisa curtseys. "My queen."

"Robb," I nod stiffly to him. "Lady Talisa."

Do not laugh. Change the mental image to something else. Gods Israel, do not laugh. Your Septa raised you right. Laughing right now would be the rudest thing in the world and need you remind yourself that you actually _like_ Talisa Maegyr and laughing would make her feel super awkward?

Would Robb squeal as he gets probed?

_Snort. _

Shit. Choke it back, Israel. And two pairs of eyes fall on you. Perfect. Just…cough.

"Sorry," I say, coughing into my hand.

I feel something warm respond in my abdomen, and I instinctively reach to place my hand over my stomach but stop at the last minute. No way, Israel. Robb is not finding out about your baby like this.

Robb spares us all the awkwardness and leads me to the Great Hall. We're dining on roasts of all sorts tonight. As long as the mutton doesn't come anywhere near me, I'm good.

Robb's predatory look comes back maybe halfway through the meal. His eyes are concentrated at my cleavage like he's focusing a beam of light or something.

"My face is up here," I say to him.

He just keeps looking, his brow slightly furrowed. "Is it just me or have the twins gotten bigger?"

Uh.

"Well, everyone's been telling me I've put on weight," I say. "I didn't believe them."

"I'm certainly not complaining," he says. "So what are the odds of you sleeping naked tonight?"

"The same as _you_ sleeping naked," I say. "On the balcony."

Robb chuckles. It's just the smallest bit nervous. He's still on edge from seeing Talisa. And you know what? He doesn't even sleep tonight. And that's when I decide that dammit, he needs my help. Talisa Maegyr is consuming his brain regardless of the fact that she's not in bed with him. He needs to fuck the girl now and get her out of his system. And yeah, it'll be sort of difficult to instigate something like that, but it's not like it'll be hard for Robb and I to bounce back from something as small as a one night stand with an old flame. And then once she's gone from his system he'll be back on track. And people sort of _need_ him to be back on track. He's the king, for fuck's sake. And not to mention that he's going to be a father and the truth is that everyone in Winterfell needs him focused.

So this is it, then. He has to fuck Talisa Maegyr. And now comes the hard part—how to bring it about?

He'd definitely squeal if she probed him. I don't give a fuck what kind of wolf they call him. He'd squeal.


	9. Chapter 9

**Royal Affair Instigation Report**

**Instigator**: Israel Loxley Frey Stark

**Instigatees**: Stark, Robb; Maegyr, Talisa

**Location: **Winterfell Castle

**Subject Observations:**

Restraint is prevalent in both subjects. Conversations do not carry further than casual greetings and stick-up-the-ass nods. Discreet surveillance involving spyglasses has yielded no evidence confirming the slightest possibility of anything deeper than a cursory glance exchanged between subjects, verifying the initial belief that air between the subjects is cold as fucking ice. Other methods to confirm said 'cold as fucking ice' air involve all-night stake-outs of the study belonging to Stark, Robb and the guestroom belonging to Maegyr, Talisa which were conducted in full by Head Instigator Israel Loxley Frey Stark and fellow instigators Forrester, Mira and Mormont, Julia, whom the Head Instigator honorably commends on their thought to bring honey rolls to said stake-outs so no one got hungry.

**Outlook:**

Dismal.

**Odds of Success:**

Nonexistent.

**Actions Report:**

Subjects are highly unlikely to act on their own. Head Instigator Israel L. F. Stark must intervene on their behalf and jumpstart an affair. Suggested methods must be proposed and weighed heavily. The chosen method must be flexible with a large margin for error, but not leave a trail of bread crumbs back to Head Instigator or else she will be at risk of having whoever finds out believe that she is really fucked up. With these set boundaries in place, three methods have immediately come to Head Instigator's mind.

**Suggested Method One:** Operation Lost-In-Forest

In which Head Instigator Israel L. F. Stark suggests a ride through the lung-freezing air with several companions in attendance including both subjects and, with the aid of fellow instigators Mormont and Forrester, releases venomous snakes imported from Dorne into the area and frightens the horses, which carry the main party away and leave the subjects alone in the woods.

**Positives:**

-The woods are vast and wild and could possibly resemble the woods in which the love between the subjects was born in the first place.

-Woods are private, secluded areas which minimizes risk of exposure.

**Negatives:**

-Venomous snakes from Dorne are not easily found, purchased, or delivered.

-The odds of horses not killing their riders unwittingly whilst trying to escape said snakes is unlikely.

-Maegyr, Talisa could not conceivably be a part of a riding party pulled together by Head Instigator without arousing suspicion amongst the remainder of the riding party.

**Odds of Success:**

2%.

**Risk Factor:**

50/50.

**Suggested Method Two: **Operation Relive-Euphoria

In which Head Instigator Israel L.F. Stark resurrects a recently dead memory herein referred to as the _Night Winter Came_, an event in which all of Winterfell may participate that implicates tête-à-têtes between all involved persons' nether regions. The layout plan for executing this operation would be the same as it was originally—tip macau beans into everyone's dinner and allow mother nature run her primal course with the aid of the brothel up the road. Head Instigator will then lure subjects into the bedchambers, which will have been prepared in advance with candles and bedding and incense and Furrow bark and wine laced with macau bean juice to further stimulate. To further encourage the affair, a minstrel will be locked in the room next door and held at the piont of a crossbow by Bodyguard Brienne of Tarth to play sultry romantic music.

**Positives:**

-The fact that the affair will occur during a hazy time where everyone is slightly inebriated will smother most—if not all—guilt that either subject may be inclined to feel.

-All of Winterfell will be allowed to partake in the merriment, which will of course make for happier governed peoples.

-Utilizing this method will also allow Head Instigator to listen in on the affair and confirm whether or not subject Stark, Robb will squeal if anally probed by Maegyr, Talisa.

**Negatives:**

-The night in question that such an event first occurred has been recognized on multiple occasions by the Head Instigator as a stupid fucking idea and for the sake of everyone's psyches ought not to be repeated.

-Bodyguard Brienne of Tarth may not be willing to point a crossbow at a minstrel.

-Because subject Stark, Robb and his mother are both aware of Head Instigator having masterminded the last event, it is highly unlikely that repeating the incident will pass without possibly losing cover.

**Odds of Success: **

57%

**Risk Factor:**

High as a kite.

**Suggested Method Three:** Operation Closed-Doors

In which the _Night Winter Came_ is repeated on a truly small scale. A room is furnished with a bed, candles, fragrance and mood-setting macau-laced wine. Subjects are lured into the room under the pretext of meeting with the queen to discuss 'medical supplies' and are left alone for the entire night.

**Positives:**

-No third party involvement in the situation will clear Head Instigator of any suspicion.

-Both subjects could conceivably be fooled into compliance.

-There are no more suggested methods so this must clearly be it.

**Negatives:**

-Subjects might later reflect on the odd fact that the queen never arrived for the discussion.

**Odds of Success:**

86%

**Risk Factor:**

Minimal.

**Selected Method:** Number Three

**Edited Method Layout:**

Subjects will be lured into a room under the pretext of discussing 'medical supplies' with the queen. The room selected will be the Gray Room, located in the South Wing of the castle, chosen specifically because it is a parlor so there is a couch for subjects Stark, Robb and Maegyr, Talisa to fuck on and could also conceivably be a place to discuss business matters, which will remove all suspicion from Head Instigator so that subjects Stark, Robb and Maegyr, Talisa do not later begin to wonder why it is that the queen wanted to discuss medical supplies in a suggestive bedroom. Subjects will, upon entering, be locked in the room. Any attempts to leave or call for outside help unlocking the door will be unsuccessful due to the fact that the south wing of the castle is a ghost town and the lack of any real activity there means that the revolving guards only pass the door to the Gray Room once every four hours. This is ample time for the dirty deed to be done, but only if Head Instigator is careful enough to ensure that both subjects enter the room precisely after the guard has turned the corner after first passing the room so they will have the full four hours to carry out the affair. At the end of the four hours, Head Instigator will open the door and enter the room and open the discussion of 'medical supplies', acting completely oblivious to the fact that both subjects are sweating and panting and slightly horrified.

**Notes:**

-Tampering with a door so it will only open from the outside is tricky and will require no small amount of genius. Here, the aid of newly enlisted instigator Master Hogarth of Lannisport has been successfully recruited and the development of such a lock is now underway.

-Due to the need for discretion, fellow instigators Forrester and Mormont have been kept out of the loop of the accepted plan.

-A comfortable place to wait out the four hours must be decided upon because the bedchambers belonging to Head Instigator and subject Stark, Robb are too far away from the Gray Room and being pregnant has eliminated the possibility of crouching next to the door trying to make out a squeal amongst the many disturbing sounds.

**Outlook:**

Positive.

**Odds of Success:**

99.5%—depending on when Master Hogarth finishes the lock.

Operation is a go.


	10. Chapter 10

The smell of wood smoke has inflamed my nostrils and watered my poor eyes. Robb is half asleep at the table while Ser Garret prattles on about the boom in taxes collected and Robb's hair looks oddly brighter than usual because the rays of sunlight peeking in from the open window are shining right onto his ginger head. Ser Garret is looking put out because he's just noticed that his king isn't really listening to what he's saying and he's clearly just a little bit insulted.

How do _you_ like it?

I send Julia to give Talisa the summons to the Gray Room with the allotted time, and I'm not even the slightest bit worried about her. All that's left is to get Robb to come. It's around dinner time when Robb finally admits that he's bone tired. He doesn't say it outright, but he looks at me with this exhausted death stare and it's immediately clear to me that he's slipping further and further to the point of no return. He doesn't get any better as the days pass. People are starting to notice how out of it that he is. I can hardly blame them for being freaked about it. It's fucking freaky.

Don't worry, Robb. Israel's gonna take good care of you. One romp in the sack with your lost lady love to clean out the old pipes and you'll be good as new. If only that freak of nature Hogarth would hurry his boney ass up getting that lock made. He can't work during the daylight hours lest we draw any suspicion, so he tinkers at the observatory tower where he usually likes to sketch. Sometimes I go and sit there with him when Robb is annoying and his tossing and turning keeps me awake.

"Where do you go?" he asks me sometimes.

"The observatory," I tell him truthfully. Don't really see what lying will get me. The only thing I'm interested in lying about is the fact that I'm setting him up to cheat on me.

Hogarth keeps his face so close to the lock as he tinkers with it that his nose is touching the metal. I just stare out at the grounds or the sky or whatever I can see in the dim light of the candles at this hour of the night.

"Do you think Ser Garret would squeal?" I ask him.

"In what situation?" Hogarth asks back, eyes still on the lock.

"If someone penetrated him."

"Like…from the back?"

"Yes."

"He probably would. What brought this about?"

"I've just taken to wondering lately what sort of people would squeal and what sort of people wouldn't."

"Well…I suppose most men are sort of squeamish about things going into their backsides. Unless they're pillow-biters. Pillow-biters aren't too squeamish about pointy things going into that general area."

"Do you think Robb would squeal?"

"Is he a pillow-biter?"

"No."

"Then he'd squeal."

And then we're both silent for a moment and I can tell from his face that's just lit up in realization that we're both trying to picture it. And then we're both laughing so hard our cheeks hurt.

"Now you've put it into my head it's all that I can think about," Hogarth laments as he holds up the lock. "All done."

"Really? You're completely done?"

"Completely. So where did you say you wanted it?"

"The door to the Gray Room. How soon can you install it?"

"Tomorrow afternoon maybe," he says. "I'll let you know once it's in. Just out of curiosity…what is it that you're planning on doing with a door that only opens from the outside?"

"Ask no questions, hear no lies," I say. "I can't thank you enough, Hogarth."

Robb is back in his half-sleep when I crawl into bed beside him. I tuck in quietly and close my eyes. It takes less than a minute before he's wrapping his arms around me, pulling me closer to him, burying his face in my neck. Well, this is almost over. Hogarth will install that thing by afternoon and I'll have executed my plan by midnight. This is the last night I get nuzzled. Thank the Gods for that. Insomniac Robb is worse that Horny Robb.

Hogarth is right on time. He's standing there in the Great Hall at breakfast looking at me pointedly, and that would have been sufficient but he's jerking his head towards the door like he's got something to say to me. He ducks into the hallway, and I can see the fabric of his tunic hovering by the doors. He's waiting.

Dammit I have no time for this nonsense. Robb is overly attentive because he's subconsciously compensating for his abstinence and it's not going to be easy slipping away from him during the daylight hours when he's clinging to me like a toddler. But Hogarth is still standing there. I can see the fabric of his clothes. Crap.

"Where are you going?" Robb asks as I rise.

"I'll be right back," I say to him. And I can feel his eyes on me as I go to the door. "What is it?" I ask Hogarth.

"I've installed the lock," he says. "But there's a slight problem."

"What happened?"

"It works," he says. "But it locks instantly the moment it closes. I've tried to fix it, but it won't budge. So whatever you're planning on doing with it, just keep that in mind. It'll lock the moment it closes and it won't open unless someone comes along and opens it for you."

HA! That's _PERFECT_! Now I won't have to risk having my cover blown by locking it myself once they're inside if it locks on its own!

"Alright," I say. "Thanks, Hogarth. I'll keep that in mind."

"Right, then," he says, and then he stiffens and sinks into a bow. "Your Grace."

The smell of wood smoke is already halfway up my nose when I turn and smile at Robb. And then I hear a discreet snort. We both turn. It's Hogarth.

"Apologies, Your Grace," he says, coughing.

Robb ignores this and takes my hand. "Hello, Master…?"

"Hogarth, Your Grace."

"Master Hogarth. You're with the Ironrath company, are you not?"

"I am, Your Grace."

"Well it's a pleasure to have you here in Winterfell."

Hogarth snorts again. Oh, Gods. Do not. Do _not_ tell me that you are picturing what I think you are picturing. His pupils seem to have dilated. Oh, yeah—he's thinking it.

He's picturing the King in the North squealing as he takes it in the ass.

Abruptly, I snort, too. Shit.

"Master Hogarth and I are working together on the observatory retouches," I tell Robb, trying to hide my smile. It doesn't work. Hogarth and I glance at each other conspiratorially and it looks so bad. Robb's eyes dart between us suspiciously.

"You're the one with the sketches?" Robb gives Hogarth a half smile. "They were impressive."

"Thank you, my King. That means a great deal coming from Your Grace. If you'll—pray, do excuse me. My Queen," he tips his head to us both before he dashes away. I can hear him cackle as he turns the corner.

My facial muscles hurt trying to keep the smile off of my face when Robb turns back to look at me. "Ho_garth_?" he repeats. "What kind of name is _Hogarth_?"

"Not a clue," I say. "But he's a good person."

"He's a terribly funny character," Robb says. "When did you two meet?"

"A few days after he got here," I say.

"You seem awfully close," he points out.

"Well, we've gotten to know each other well over time," I say. "You know he spent some time in the Riverlands when he was young? He's quite well-travelled." And then I smile at Robb as sweetly as I can and kiss his cheek. "Look—we have to discuss medical supplies later—you, me and Talisa."

"The three of us?" Robb asks, looking kind of like he has smelled something really rotten—like maybe his slowly decaying will to live.

"The three of us," I say. "Meet us in the Gray Room. You know the room, don't you? In the South Wing?"

"Sure, sure," he says, nodding.

"Excellent," I kiss his cheek again. "I'll see you there at sunset. Don't be late!"

I dash off as quickly as I can. I have to furnish the fucking room myself because no way in hell am I going to get anyone else involved and risk all of Winterfell knowing what I'm up to.

I enter the room slowly. No one's here yet. Fucking duh. Neither of them would show up this early. I use a little piece of wood to stop the door and then I lay out the tray of wine, the goblets, the extra cushions and light the incense. The hardest part is going to be mixing the macau bean into the wine. Too much and it'll be obvious from the taste that it's been tampered with. Too little and it won't have any effect. I sit there stirring the beans around at the bottom of the pitcher for an hour, tasting drops at a time as I go, but the beans seem stubborn today. Of course I've been holding onto them since last night. Usually when you pull them out of their bucket you're supposed to use them right away or they'll just dry up again. These things have dried up because they've been out of water for so long and it's taking forever for their juices to infect the wine. I sit there stirring until I can hear the footsteps echoing in the hallway. This is when I panic, you see, because it's nearly sunset and surely one of them must be intending to arrive early. I guess that this mixture will have to do. I pull out the beans with a spoon and shove them back into my pocket, pouch be damned, and try to calm myself down to think this clearly through.

Okay, Israel. You've been a little delayed, and it's time for a change of plans. You can't go out the door because whoever is approaching will see you leave and then you'll have to come up with some excuse to be leaving before the meeting has even started and send this whole plan up in smoke. You can't stay inside because then nothing will happen between them. And you can't disappear because that's physically impossible. So you can either sacrifice your plan and stay where you are _or_…you can hide in that little storage compartment there and have to witness the hookup.

They both sound so _enticing_.

The footsteps are getting louder. Well, it's now or never, honey pie. Pick your poison.

Staying where I am means that they won't get any ass. It also means that I should probably dump the wine out the window before the meeting starts. I don't think I'll be very comforted if either of them get hot and bothered while we're discussing alternative nettle and mustard uses. Ooh—samba poisoning—how _sexy_.

But on the other hand, I have no interest in watching a phreaky peep show hosted by Robb Stark and Talisa Maegyr. I already spend half of my time trying to forget about fucking Robb—I don't want to have to endure the agony of sponging the memories of him fucking someone _else_ as well. _And _If I'm in here hiding, then I can't burst in later and open the meeting, and that means that we could all conceivably be here until morning. I have no interest in squatting in the compartment watching Robb and Talisa phuck for twelve hours straight.

On the third hand, people really need Robb to get his shit together. The whole palace has made note of how out of sorts he is and while that's taken a lot of pressure off of me, it's not good for the general kingdom when their new leader is suffering from such intense self-inflicted cockblocking that he can't even sleep at night.

Well, Israel—it looks like the time has come for you to take one for the team. Get into the fucking compartment. I hug my knees to my chest. I'm packed like a dried fruit and it ain't pretty. But at least I'm so concentrated on how uncomfortable I am that I probably won't be able to hear anything going on out there.

The footsteps enter the room. Judging by their lightness, I'd guess at Talisa. It takes maybe two minutes until the scent of honeysuckle reaches me and I know that I'm right. I watch through the crack of the closed compartment door. Gods, it smells like dust and old paper in this thing. I squint through the crack and try to get a look at the girl. She enters slowly, looking around the room. That's right. No one's here yet. Pour yourself some wine. More. Good girl. That's it. Look out the window. Nice view, huh? As if you've never seen that green field before. _Yeah_.

And here comes player two! Enter Robb Stark, doing that thing you always do where you tip the door shut absently with your other hand. It closes lightly, and with that we're all locked in. Talisa turns around.

"Robb," she says, but she doesn't tip her head. No point now. They're all alone—or so they think.

"Talisa," he greets her, pouring himself a goblet, too. "How has your time in Winterfell been so far?"

"Fair," she says. "Everyone is as kind and happy as I remember them being."

Ugh. I'd have been alright with watching them grease each other's assholes if I wasn't crunched in this hole like a packed fucking pudding tart.

They're both nervous. I know this because suddenly their wine glasses are both empty, so they reach for the jug to pour out some more. Oh—wait. You've both reached it at the same time and your fingers have brushed. And now you're both sort of frozen there with stupid looks on your faces and then Robb clears his throat and Talisa looks away and Robb refills both of your glasses and you've drained them before he's even set the jug down.

The macau beans don't work like magic. It takes a few minutes—especially because they were dry already because _somebody_ (and I won't say any names (me)) didn't have the foresight to wait until this morning until they pulled them out of the bucket they were soaking in. But after maybe ten minutes in silence, I can distinctly spot Robb tugging at his collar. I suppose he'd be on edge—more so than her because of his sex drive and the lack of any real activity in the past few weeks. Talisa lasts a little longer, though. It's at least twenty minutes and two more goblets of wine before I notice her fingers stretching, fist clenching and unclenching.

"It's awfully warm in here, isn't it?" asks Robb.

"I suppose," Talisa says. I smile. Look away Israel—audio is bad enough.

Let's rock, motherfuckers.


	11. Chapter 11

This little compartment smells like something really stale was here not too long ago. A strand of hair has fallen into my face. I blow it away and peek through the gap. There's got to be maybe eight or nine feet between them.

Stupid virgins.

"Israel's taking her dear sweet time," Robb notes.

"I'm sure she'll be here soon," Talisa says. "She's a very busy young woman."

"She is, she is," Robb says. "She works terribly hard."

"Not too hard, I hope," Talisa says. "She's awfully young."

"You'd be surprised how much she can handle," Robb says.

"I don't doubt her," Talisa says back.

I frown. What the fuck? How are they supposed to get anywhere if they're too busy talking about me? I'm the last thing they should be thinking about right now. Talking about the wife is _not_ how you set the mood.

"Sometimes I think she works _too _hard," Robb says. "Worries _too_ much."

"She seemed perfectly fine in the few times I've been around her."

"Perhaps. She likes to hide behind pretty smiles and charms and happy manners. But underneath it, she's iron grit."

"I suppose she'd have to be in order to carry such a burden as this," Talisa says. "Being the Queen in the North is no small task."

Her words hover there between them for a minute and I can feel the change in the air. The title. Queen in the North. The title that should—by all rights—have been _hers_. The title he _almost_ gave her. They both pause, staring at each other, and their breathing seems to slow. It's too slow.

Shit. I knew I should have experimented before mixing macau beans into the wine. Having the cooks mix it into a stuffing for roast duck is one thing, but I've never tried doping someone like _this_ before. Please don't die. Please don't die. Please don't die—

"Robb," Talisa whispers, and his mouth just smashes against hers.

Alright. It's on.

I turn my head away, but of course I can't tune out the sounds of plungers. Whatever. At least it's working. I caution a peek through the crack. Gods be good, that was quick. Robb's fingers are already twitching towards his belt, though he hasn't quite reached for it yet.

"Wait—" Talisa pulls back.

Oh, come on.

Robb backs away from her slightly, and they're both panting into the little space of air that's separating them. He adjusts his collar.

"I'm sorry," he says, shaking his head. "I'm sorry."

"You're married," she says. "You're married now. And we both—we both agreed to leave this where it was. And—and Israel is a _good_ girl. She…she's good."

You don't know the half of it, sugar. Now get back underneath my gingersnap husband and save the North.

"She is," Robb says. "I'm married. She's a good girl. And a fine wife."

Oh, Gods. Here we go. Everyone knows that being married is a _pathetic_ excuse to avoid sleeping with an old flame. And they sure as hell can't come up with a reason not to, so now they're gonna use me. Well absolutely hell fucking _no_. I did not pack myself like a fucking sardine into this compartment and go to all this trouble so you could use me as an excuse to flake out on fucking each other _stupid_.

"She's a fine queen…and she's been good to me…" Talisa is saying. But her voice is slowing again as doubt reemerges. Yeah, Israel's a fine queen, and yeah she's a good person—or so you_ think_—and yeah she's been nice to you but does that really _matter_ to you right now?

Father, lower their inhibitions.

Smith—I know this isn't the sort of sword people usually pray you'll sharpen, but you get the gist, right?

Warrior—give him vigor.

Mother, protect me from sneezing and interrupting them.

Maiden, you stayed a maiden so you probably won't understand this prayer much anyways.

Crone—come on. Throw me a bone here.

Stranger…well, do your thing.

Bear in mind that I smoked Furrow bark on the sacred ground of your fiercest competitor. Hope that counts for something.

I'm going straight to hell.

Talisa's eyes lock with Robb's and they're sucking face again. That's right, honey bunches. Jump on that boy and ride him until he _breaks_. Trust me—he needs you to.

"We can't do this," Robb is saying.

Well that's an interesting observation to make as you pry her dress open.

"We can't," she agrees as she fumbles with his belt.

"I promised her I would not dishonor any of us," he says. Or grunts—pick one. "All three of us."

"We shouldn't," she says. "It's…it's dishonorable…"

"Terrible…we're terrible."

Oh, stop guilt tripping each other and fuck already. My ass is half asleep and _HOLY FUCK THERE'S A FUCKING SPIDER IN HERE_.

Oh, Gods preserve me, this thing is _huge_. I watch wide eyed as it skittles across the wood, it's every step bringing it closer to me. I release a jagged breath and bite into my lip.

Do. Not. Make. A. Sound.

_Skit. Skit. Skit. Skit. _It seems to echo as it creep-stalks closer and closer. I bite deeper into my lip. I am not good with spiders. I am not good with much of any creepy crawlers. I shift my weight so I'm closer to the door, then inhale sharply and press myself against the ugly thing. Oh, _mama_—okay. Okay. I've trapped it. It's trapped. It's long, spiky black legs are still sticking out over my shoulder.

Oh Israel, the Gods still love you. They possessed you to wear the gown with the quarter sleeves.

The spider's legs are dragging across the fabric on my shoulder, making me whimper involuntarily. I freeze and peek out at my victims. They've stopped. Oh, shit. They can't have heard that. But somehow, they've both just frozen. Talisa pulls back, straightening out her gown.

"No," she says, shaking her head. "No. You decided for yourself—you chose your promise to Walder Frey."

"I did, I did," Robb says, shaking his head like he's trying to snap the phunk out. Good luck to ya, gingersnap.

"And you chose to walk away. This was _your_ choice."

"It was, it was."

"And you don't get to do this now."

"You're right," he says. "I'm sorry."

She sighs. "I'm sorry too," she says quietly.

Silence. No. No. Fuck. Do it. Now. I command you. Please. I'm stuck in here with this fucking enormous spider and I went to all of this trouble so you two could have this blissful afternoon. It's the most selfless thing I've ever done for anyone.

"Do you ever wonder," he asks. "What would have happened if we had done it? Married?"

"Often," she says. "In the beginning when it was still fresh in my mind. But if we had, then you would not have won the war."

"What do you mean?"

"No one would follow a king who cannot keep his word, Robb," Talisa says. "And you gave Israel your word. And I may not have promised her anything—but she's got enough on her plate right now. She can't be running around handling all of the duties of a queen _and_ worry about the state of her marriage. And to be honest with you…neither of us can afford this right now."

I guess that maybe it's hearing her say the words that makes it occur to me that this might not have been the most selfless thing. In fact, it might be the worst stunt I've ever pulled. I mean—let's be real here. I did it for me. For me and for Winterfell, but mostly for me so I wouldn't have to deal with nervous cranky anxious Robb anymore. But he and this girl were in _love_ once—and they look like they sort of still are—and putting them in a situation where they torture themselves and each other with a quickie in the parlor will reignite that. If they do this now, they'll hate themselves and each other for it and what I thought would help Robb will end up destroying the both of them.

Oh Israel, now you've _really_ done it. Here's to hoping their willpower can overcome macau beans.

"When I chose Israel," Robb says. "I told myself that it was because she was the only one who stood out well enough that I didn't immediately think of you when I looked at her. But that was never true. When I arrived at the Twins that day, all I could think about was you. And how badly I wished that Walder Frey would die in his sleep and release me from the bargain."

Talisa listens. So do I. The spider legs drag across my shoulder pointedly. This thing is pissed. Well, Charlotte—get in line.

"And as I dined with him that night, I looked out at all the girls sitting at their table, whispering amongst themselves, and in each one of them I tried to look for something that could remind me of you. One had your eyes. One had your smile. One had your laugh. One had your hands. One did that thing you do where you drum your fingers on your knee. And I knew that it wasn't fair for me to be doing that to myself—to them, either—but I didn't care. All I wanted was something to hold onto. Something to keep you and me alive. And then I saw her…Israel. She was sitting on the fence by the apple orchard with this sketchbook. She liked to sit there and I'd see her on my morning walks. The only time when she could be observed honestly was when she was observing others. There's a moment when she's caught up in her thoughts and if you look hard enough at her, you can see it. Have you ever tried it?"

"Sometimes," Talisa says. "When she's not looking. I haven't had as much time alone with her as you have. And in public that façade of hers is impenetrable."

"It's a strange thing," Robb says. "She was so focused and icy and so in control…it was the complete opposite of what I was feeling at the time. I looked at her and I saw something that I wished I could be. And then I started to pay attention to her a little more closely, and then I saw it. This…_promise_. Israel has so much _promise_, and I knew it had to be her. I looked at her all the time—but carefully, carefully—because if she felt me watching she'd freeze back up again—and I told myself that if that promise seemed to fade for even a moment then I'd turn away and never look at her again. But it never did. And every time I looked at her, I thought '_here's a girl that people could call a queen_'. And every time I look at her, I still see it."

"Have you ever told her this?"

"She's not as easy to talk to as you might think."

"But she is still your wife," Talisa says. "And she is still only a girl. A young girl in a foreign land surrounded by foreign people. She needs _someone_ to be honest with her."

And they're sitting kinda closer than they were a few minutes ago. Hm. That macau bean mix is persistent. Shit. I hope they can bounce back. And his hand is close to hers. Maybe their willpower is strong enough to overcome the effects of the beans? Or…maybe not. They're closer now. Oh shit, I've totally ruined any chance of happiness for either of them.

Ouch. What the fuck—?

Oh, Gods. The spider bit me. The fucking spider just bit me. And it fucking _hurts. _I press my shoulder further against the thing. Dammit, I was gonna let you live but now you're fucking dead. Oh, shit. My shoulder feels numb. What the fuck? Now my arm is numb.

Uh oh.

I think I know which spider that is. It's a Stream Sucker. And its bite is _bad_. Bad like I'm gonna pass out in the next ten seconds.

Step one: Close your mouth so the thing can't crawl into it.

Step two: lean your head away from the compartment door.

Step three: Close your eyes and black the fuck out.

Oh, Seven please don't let that fucking spider crawl into my mouth.

-.

My eyes flutter open and I know without looking that it's gotten dark out. I feel around slowly—my limbs feel funny—but the spider must have made its exit because I'm definitely alone in here. I peek out. No one's here. Thank the Gods. I crawl out and my knees and arms feel sore and tired and way too much like jelly, so I walk slowly to the couch and take a seat on it. The candles are dying. I tip the wax out and the room is lit decently enough for me to take a look around. Alright. What excuse could I possibly give them for not having shown up? Well, I suppose I could tell them the truth—that I got bitten by a Stream Sucker and passed the fuck out. I could just conveniently leave out the part about having been in the compartment the entire time. Yeah, that's good. That could work. Alright Israel, let's get outta here.

"Shit," I murmur, yanking on the knob.

Oh, yeah. Hogarth fucked with the lock. And now _I'm_ locked in. Just peachy.

The funny warmth comes up from within my stomach and I pat my hand over it gingerly. Well, munchkin—it's just you and me now.


	12. Chapter 12

Okay—what are the realistic odds of me getting out of here in the next hour? Well, let's stop and consider the facts, shall we?

Who knows that you're in here? No one.

Who could guess at your being in here? Not many people.

How long until that guard's rotation comes back around? Well, it'd be easy to guess at it if I hadn't spent an unknown amount of time blacked out because of that fucking spider. It doesn't look too late at night. I'd guess it's early—early enough for the next rotation to be more than an hour away.

Fuck.

So, what then?

Wait a darn-tootin' second—Israel, you're the fucking _queen_.

Oh, yeah.

So if you don't turn up at bed tonight, Robb's going to ask Mira and Julia where you are. And when they tell him the truth—that they haven't seen you since breakfast this morning—then he's going to ask Brienne, but she's already going to have started her search for you because she's your bodyguard and it's natural for her to immediately think that you're face down in a ditch somewhere with some fucked up soul trying to harvest your liver. And then people will start to panic because literally _no one_ has seen you since breakfast and that means that something really bad might have happened to you, so they'll organize a search party to find you assuming that you're loose in the woods, but then they'll find Phillip in the stables and they'll know that's not the case, and then they'll have to guess that maybe you might have fallen off the face of the earth and then—

_Shit_.

How long until Robb thinks to ask Hogarth? He was—after all—one of the last people anyone saw me talking to. Hogarth has no brain to mouth filter. Something about his lack of verbal restraint tells me that he's not going to hold up well in a cross examination by Robb. And he's going to let the word slip about the lock he messed with for me and you know it's not a very big leap from point A to point B. If Hogarth tells Robb that I asked him to fuck with the lock to this room, then it won't be long before Robb figures out that I may have had a hand in his afternoon with Talisa. And then there's the other unsavory things he could tell him, like—_Seven protect me_.

He's going to tell Robb about how we've debated whether or not he would squeal.

Gods be good. I think I'm going to die.

No, I'm not. It's just my heart pounding in terror. No, no, wait—Stream Sucker poison knocks you out but lingers in your system after you wake up. So you technically might still be dying. I mean, don't get me wrong—the list of things you could use to treat a bite like this is about a mile and a half long, but being locked in this room, I have access to none of said cures.

Okay, Israel—you've _got_ to get out of here before Robb finds Hogarth. If Robb gets a hold of that fishbone, he'll sing like a canary and all of Winterfell will know how well and truly fucked up you are.

So what are your options? Think, Israel, _think_.

Oh, Robb's going to wring me out to dry when Hogarth tells him.

Focus, Israel. Think.

You could try and pick the lock on the door. Though the honest likelihood of that succeeding is low if such odds exist at all. Because like me, Hogarth knows what the fuck he's doing. And he wouldn't half-ass making an impenetrable lock. I told him it had to be un-pickable. So no dice.

You could bang on the door hysterically and maybe the guard won't be far in his rotation. But then you'd have to explain to him and the rest of the people frantically searching for you exactly what it is you were doing in here. After this afternoon's disaster, I'm not eager to be seen in this room. So whatever you're going to do, do it quietly and do it soon because who knows how long it'll take for Robb to remember Hogarth?

Nope. This whole room is a dead end. Unless...

Oh, deary me.

Well, Israel, you have two choices. You could stay here and let the guard rotate around again, in which time Robb will have reached Hogarth so you won't even have to explain what you were doing in here to begin with. Or...you could climb out the window and down the tower to the ground.

Oh, Gods.

These shoes were not made for climbing. Actually, they weren't made for much of anything besides sitting pretty. But hell—if I fall and die, then at least I won't have to face Robb later. I raise one leg over the sill and feel around for a place to put it. There we go. Now the other leg. Great job, Israel. Now slide out the rest of the way. Alright. Now slowly, slowly, _slowly_ reach for that lower stone. Good job! You're a natural. Just don't look down. And whatever you do, don't think of your brother in law and how he fell from a tower like this and how you are literally one misstep away from ending up just like him—paralyzed from the waist down and missing in action beyond the Wall.

Lucky me, the stones have had lots of time to dry out since the raining stopped a week ago. I climb down slowly—very slowly. The little piglet does that stupid warmth thing again. Shut up, you cockroach. It's bad enough that I have to move like a snail because I'm scared as _fuck_ but my arms still feel funny from that spider bite—which, BTW, I should probably get looked at when I get back to them—and I have no patience to spare for this nonsense. Why don't we wait another couple of months until you're demanding all of my attention? I got into this mess trying to take care of one baby—your damn daddy—and I'd like to enjoy what little freedom I have left while I still have it.

I slip twice. I pray multiple times. I swear often. I honestly cannot recall any part of Winterfell being this tall. But maybe it just feels tall because I'm scaling it. Whatever. As soon as I'm low enough, I jump the remaining five feet to the ground and stand there for a minute thanking the Gods for the simple pleasure of having something beneath my feet.

Back to business, Israel.

Right. Off to the Main Hall, then.

I can see them in the distance. The faint glint of torches, the distant calls of 'Queen Israel'. So they haven't seen Phillip in the stable yet, which means they're still early in the search, which means that they've only just noticed me missing.

What a bunch of inattentive assholes. I'm your fucking _queen_. Me going missing should be a national fucking emergency. A catastrophe. Well, _excuse_ me.

I cling to the walls as I circle the castle around to the entrance. Robb's right there by the door.

"She can't have gone into the woods," Robb says. "Her horse is still in the stable and she'd _never_ take another one."

"Israel!" Catelyn hurries towards me. She hugs me so tightly I can feel my ribs crunching. Yep, this is it. Goodbye, Munchkin. It was nice knowing you.

"Are you alright?" Robb asks, taking my hand and pulling me closer to him. "No one's seen you all day, where have you been?"

"I…" well, this is a bit of a problem. I can't say that I got lost or something. And I can't say I went for a walk—because no one's walk could last the entire day—and I can't say that I got bitten by a spider and passed out for the entire day because everyone knows how Stream Sucker poison works. And I sure as hell can't tell him where I _really _was. "I…"

Robb raises an eyebrow at me expectantly.

"You…?" he urges me to continue.

"I…"

"Oh Gods," Catelyn reaches for the fabric of my dress and pulls back the shoulder. Oh, _shit_. I forgot how scary that bite can look if you don't treat it right away.

"I…"

"Israel, what is this? What happened?" Robb asks, fingering the bite delicately. The bite itself is purple, and the whole space around it is red and kinda shiny.

Ew.

But you know what? My brain just had an idea.

"I…"

"What?" asks Robb, pulling me closer. "You _what_? Speak, Israel—what happened?"

"Madame," Lord Bryndon comes closer. "Thank the Gods, we were worried sick! But…what has happened?"

Well, Israel—you braved a Stream Sucker and the fifty foot descent. I think you can pull this off.

"I…can't breathe," I say, and then I fall into Robb's arms like a tragic fucking heroine.

Saved by the brains.


	13. Chapter 13

"She appears to have been cruelly handled," Maester Ormond's voice says. "I found delicate bruising along her knees and she had trouble moving when I saw her first. Her hands have some very odd wounds. Bruised fingers, a few cuts—she's had some sort of struggle—against the attacker, no doubt."

"The poor child," I can hear Catelyn whisper, and fingers stroke my hair out of my face. I'd swat her hand away, but I can't do that because I'm faking being asleep.

Now I know better than to lie to these people because they are genuinely scared that something bad happened to me. And I'm not lying. Really. I'm not. I've simply decided not to tell the truth. I've decided that they can cook up whatever crazy theory they want about what happened to me. I am feigning complete and total memory loss. Yeah, it's not my best idea, but considering what a time crunch I was on when it occurred to me, I'd say it's not too bad.

"Fortunately, there doesn't seem be any sensitive damage of the more…personal sort. It would appear that the most her attacker did was whatever caused the bruising on her knees and hands."

"What about the bite?" Robb asks. "On her shoulder? Was that a spider bite?"

"Perhaps. The bite was already a few hours old when we found her so now it's difficult to tell which insect might be responsible for it. It might be the Stream Sucker, which—when treated—is completely harmless—or the Green Bootlegger—which…well…"

"Which is deadly," Robb finishes.

"Or it could be the Gray Beetle," Maester Ormond continues.

The truth is that that specific detail hadn't occurred to me. I hadn't thought on the fact that an aged Stream Sucker bite could easily be confused with another, more lethal insect. Just like I hadn't thought that pretending to have no memory of anything that happened yesterday would be confused with a possible kidnapping. There's a lot of stuff I didn't account for when I fake passed out in Robb's arms. The only thing that _did_ occur to me was that I had no idea how to explain where I'd been, and I thought the faint might buy me more time, or that it would be sort of a self-explanatory type of answer.

Oh, well. Go with the flow.

"What happened, Israel?" Robb asks as soon as I bat an eyelash. "What happened out there?"

I shrug. "I can't recall." Not gonna say any more than that. Just let everyone cook up theories on their own. Deny, deny, deny until you die.

Robb and Catelyn share a blink-and-miss-it look and it's immediately clear that they don't buy it. I don't suppose I blame them. If my memory serves me correctly, Catelyn once mentioned a separate occasion when a loved one also awoke from a distressing circumstance claiming that he could not recall how he had wound up in that position, and it transpired that he had a peep show of the Lannister twins. I wonder who they think _I_ walked in on.

So they're suspicious but too afraid of pushing me too hard to actually prod any further. So I'm left in peace for a little while. Not long. I need Hogarth in here instantaneously.

"You sent for me?" he asks as he pops his head in.

"Get over here," I wave him close. "Close the door behind you."

Hogarth shuts the door quietly and takes the seat beside my bed. "What happened to you? You have any clue what they're saying outside? Everyone thinks you were kidnapped or raped or kidnapped _and_ raped. They're horrified."

"Are they really?"

"They are. I've never seen them so agitated and protective. '_Our poor darling queen'_ and _'the little thing must have been so afraid!_' It's preposterous. So what really happened?"

"First thing's first—you haven't told Robb about the lock?"

"I haven't told a soul. What do you think I am?"

"You have verbal restraint challenges."

"Not _that_ bad, though. I think."

"Good to know."

"So what happened?"

"Well…long story short, I got caught in my own trap."

"You got locked in the Gray Room?"

"Yep."

"What on earth did you even want that lock for anyways?"

"I think I'll be taking that one to the grave."

"Fair enough," Hogarth leans back and rubs his eyes. "When I heard that you were missing, I thought that maybe you might have run away."

"What made you think that?"

"I don't know. I just thought…well, I know how much you hate it here. I'd have run if I were you."

"I've thought about it more than once. Running away. Leaving this place. Watching this castle shrink in the distance."

"Why haven't you?"

"It's too late for that now," I say. "I'm pregnant."

"Are you really?"

"Yes."

"How far along?"

"Far enough. Late into the fifth month, maybe."

"Should I congratulate you?"

"Not just yet, no. But thanks in advance."

"Anytime," Hogarth says. "So should I get rid of that lock?"

"Yeah, probably."

"I'd best get on it, then. So how much longer are you going to be 'bed-ridden'?"

"Another day maybe. To sell this whole thing."

"Right. Well I look forward to your late night return to the observatory. We're almost done up there."

"I'll be along when I can," I say.

Brienne is finicky the entire day. I can see her shadow outside the door. She doesn't move at all, lest some attacker arrives to finish me off as I sleep all day and snack on honey cakes and read romance novels. I'm back on my feet the next morning because I'm so bored out of my fucking skull from lying around all day.

"It's good to see you healing so quickly," Robb says. "I've got a surprise for you."

"What?"

And Robb holds up a small little box for me. Well tootsie, if you're gonna propose that's great except you already put a ring on it. I take the box and pull the top off.

Since I am easily hurt and slow to heal, I'm still sort of weary of anything that might even be close to something Talisa might be seen with. But it's not. It's a bracelet. She doesn't wear lots of those. I, however, wear tons of those. And this one has my name written all over it. Not literally. But my name is engraved onto the inside. Pretty. As hell.

"How sweet," I smile and give Robb's cheek a kiss. "Thank you, Robb."

"You could wear it to the dinner soon," he says. "The council will be dining to cap off the last of the construction. No one will be happier to see the end of this than me. We've invited your friend Hogarth since he's been such a big help with the observatory."

"I'll be counting the days," I say, trying on the bracelet. It makes my skin look kinda pale, but it's nice. And it makes my wrists look skinny which is always a good thing. Especially considering how far from skinny I'm getting each day.

No one pays any more attention to the weight I'm slowly putting on, and after a little while I notice that it's because I've stopped putting any weight on at all. I'm grateful that my waist hasn't taken too much damage, and then I notice that salvaging my measurements comes at a price—I have a small but very well defined bump sticking out from between my hips. It's easily disguisable underneath the fabric of my gowns during the day, but at night I have this fear that Robb will pull my nightgown off of me and see it. But he's still not doing much more than cuddling, so I'm still in the safe zone. All the same, I make sure I wear a gown with a well-padded bodice to the dinner when the observatory is finally complete.

"Just when I was starting to think I'd never see the last of these Glen stonemasons," Stonemaster Edmund says ruefully. "I do confess I'm awfully sad to see them go."

"Their place is back at the Glen," Ser Garret says. "And now everyone is back where they belong."

And then his eyes seem to linger on me for a minute, like he's trying to mentally say '_almost everyone_', and he wordlessly sips at his soup. I look at Hogarth—seated directly across the table from me—pointedly. He nods.

"Total asshole," he murmurs under his breath so only we can hear it.

"Didn't I tell you?"

"Definitely not sleeping with anyone—man or woman."

"He should though," I say. "It might help his attitude a bit."

"I doubt it," Hogarth says. "Nothing can help him now."

"You surprised me, Master Hogarth," Ser Calvin says. "I did not suspect that a trainee healer could be so adept at managing construction projects."

"I like to do my research, Ser," Hogarth says. "Wouldn't do to go in half-blind."

"You're from Lannisport, are you not?"

"I am, Ser."

"You're terribly far from home," Catelyn says.

"I like to travel," Hogarth says. "See new places, meet new people. It's always good to get a change of scene."

"I didn't think anyone coming out of the Westerlands had any interest in looking beyond their own borders," Ser Garret says. "They always struck me as a pompous lot."

"Well, closed minds think alike, Ser Garret," Hogarth says.

I smile into my wine. "Will you be staying much longer in Winterfell or will you be returning to Ironrath to tend to the soldiers there?"

"I'll go wherever I'm needed," Hogarth says.

"If you ask me you ought to remain here in Winterfell," Robb says. "Multi-talented men like you are a rarity."

"I suppose I could stay," Hogarth says. "And I could recommend you an excellent bunch of healers and caretakers for the queen when the time comes."

I cough delicately into my wine goblet and make a cutting motion at my neck. Shut up. Shut _up_ Hogarth. Shut up _now_.

"The time comes for what?" asks Robb.

"Well, the big day, of course!" Hogarth says, and before anyone can say a word, I tip my goblet over onto the table.

"Oh dear," Catelyn waves over one of the maids, who quickly starts to clean it up.

"Shaky hands, my Queen," Hogarth says. "Not to worry. I'm told it's a symptom. It'll be gone before the wee one is born, though—don't you worry—_oh_!"

I kick Hogarth's chair from underneath the table and it tips back onto the ground with a crash. Shit. Tipped it too hard. Edmure gets to his feet and helps Hogarth back up.

"Are you alright?" Lord Bryndon asks.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," Hogarth says, dusting himself off.

"I always tell Robb never to tip his chair like that," Catelyn says. "Terribly dangerous. You could hit the back of your head and injure yourself!"

And I just stay back in my seat because Robb is looking at me funny. Not a good funny, either.

"You're pregnant?" he asks.

Silence has never been more golden.

Hogarth looks between us both confusedly. "I…" His voice echoes briefly in the quiet of the room, and his eyes fall on me. "You didn't tell him?"

"I…uh…hm." I shake my head. "Sur…surprise."

But the look on Robb's face tells me he's not surprised at all. Just pissed. Really, really pissed.

Well, I suppose it's high time I get the hell out of here.


	14. Chapter 14

Down the hall. Move it. Come on. That's it. Pray to the gods that you hope have any love in them left for you to help you speed these legs up and put as much distance between the Blue Dining Room and yourself as humanly possible.

"Israel, get _back _here," Robb calls behind me.

Here comes the reckoning. I draw up a mental list of everything bad that I've ever done. It's a pretty long list. The Gods clearly have it out for me.

I can hear his footsteps somewhere behind me. He's gaining speed. I pick up into a jog, and when I can feel his steps echoing, I break into a run. Mind you that is no easy task. But of course a startled animal will do amazing things to escape the predator. Robb is the predator tonight, and this time I'm positive that he'll actually _kill_ me if he gets his hands on me.

"Israel," he's close. Close enough to take my arm and pull me along to our chambers. His grip's not too firm or harsh, but he's not happy and I can see it on his face.

Oh Israel, you've really _stepped_ in it this time.

Robb lets go of my arm as soon as we're inside and turns to Mira and Julia, who are setting up my evening bath.

"Leave us," he hisses, and they all but fly outta here. Some girls have all the luck.

"Robb—"

"How could you keep this from me?" he asks.

"Robb—"

"And why does _Hogarth_ know? How did you see fit to tell _him_ before _me_?"

"It wasn't supposed to come out like that—"

"Like that? Like your bloody lover wasn't supposed to out you in front of the entire council? Let me know my wife is carrying _my_ baby for—for who knows how long?"

"I didn't want t—wait—_lover_?"

"I know about you and Hogarth," Robb says bitterly. "I know about your late night visits to the observatory. I know you two have been carrying on for weeks. But I am _stunned_ that you would keep me out of the loop about what _else_ you're carrying."

"I'm not having an affair with Hogarth," I say.

He blinks. "You're not?"

"No, I'm not. Why on earth would you think that?"

"You spent nights at the observatory," Robb says. "I know he does, too."

"You think if I'm going to carry on with someone, I'd do it up there? Where it's freezing cold and all the insulation has been removed for the renovations? Oh, hey let's just meet up and lie together here in this bone chilling tower and hope we don't die of frostbite before we climax! How _romantic_!"

Robb just stares at me. "I'm detecting sarcasm."

"You're detecting an awful _lot_ of sarcasm. I'm not having an affair, Robb. Hogarth and I are simply friends. People can do that, you know—they can be friends. Like you and Talisa, for instance—isn't that what you've been saying to me this whole time?"

"My friendship with her has nothing to do with the fact that you told Hogarth before me. I can't even wrap my head around—Israel…how far along are you?"

_And_ here's the question I'd really been hoping to avoid.

"I…"

"Israel?"

"Well…"

"Israel, _how far_?"

"I—five months."

"_Five_?"

"Well…late fifth—going into the sixth."

Robb just stares at me. "Israel?"

"Yes?" I squeak.

"You're a failure as a human being."

Ouch.

"Well—sorry you feel that way. But if it's any comfort, this thing is strong as an ox."

"You know what's funny? You always seemed the most human of the Frey daughters simply because you tried so hard to be perfect all the time. I used to love that about you—how human you seemed. What's _wrong_ with you? _How_ could you keep this from me?"

"I didn't do it on purpose," I promise him, and he just collapses into the seat by the fireplace. I take the seat next to him and grip his hand pointedly. "Really, I didn't."

"So you just _accidentally_ did it, then?" he asks.

"Well…no. Sort of. Look, it's all terribly convoluted—"

"No it's not. You should have told me the _second_ you found out!"

"I couldn't!" I say. "Because there was a chance that I could have miscarried and I was terrified of disappointing everyone! So I just…sat on it for a little while until I was sure it would live and then I got sidetracked and figured maybe I should give it a little longer just to make sure and—"

"Why do you still insist on performing?" he asks. "Why—when I have told you over and over again—do you seem so hellbent on shutting me away? I'm supposed to be your _husband_—we're supposed to be a _team_!"

"The problem is that we're not!" I say. "We're _not_ a team and we're _not_ together in this because we're _still_ keeping secrets and going behind each other's backs and we're _still_ just Robb Stark and Israel Frey!" Robb just stares at me again. He looks so close to done it's unreal. "We were doing fine," I say. "We were. But you know what our problem is? Just when things seem to be getting on track, you have to go insisting that Talisa Maegyr returns to Winterfell because you have to _prove_ something to yourself or to me or to her or to whoever you were trying to prove it to when you invited her here with Ser Lanagan and I did what I've always done—I've put _you_ first. Because that's what good wives _do_. I've inconvenienced myself in ways that you can _never_ imagine and I've bitten my tongue on so much _nonsense_ and your stubble gave me a _rash on my neck_ and that's not even the least of my problems but I did it all because you are my husband and that is what good wives do for their husbands—and last I checked, a wife is what you asked for when you showed up at the Twins and picked me like a pumpkin at the market."

"Would you have said no?" he asks me. "If your father would have allowed you the choice—would you?"

No, no, no. This is not the sort of question I have any intention of answering. I am not going to kick this guy around by telling him that his pregnant wife would have preferred to go back in time and erase that day from her life—that she would have preferred eternal spinsterhood at the Twins to being his Queen in the North.

"Don't go poking for answers to questions like that, Robb," I say. "You won't like what you hear."

"Where were you that day when you called that meeting with Talisa and I?" he asks. "Because I know you weren't kidnapped and I know you can remember."

Oh, gods I'm never going to answer that one truthfully either.

"I don't—"

"Tell me," he says. "_Tell me._ You called a meeting between us and you never arrived and we were locked in that room for four hours before a guard came and opened the door for us. I was born at night, but not _last_ night. Did you do that? Did you put us in there so you could set us up?"

I just close my eyes and lean back. This is it. The point of no return. "I just wanted you two to figure things out," I say. "Away from prying eyes. I was doing it for _you_."

"Yes—such an _excellent_ service you've done for the husband who picked you like a pumpkin at the market," Robb says.

"Admit you've been sleeping through the night again," I say. "Admit it—it's helped you."

"You cooked this scheme up as you were _carrying_ _my_ _child_ _inside of you_?" Robb asks incredulously. "Does it not disturb you in the _slightest_ what could have happened?"

"Would you like it to?" I ask. "Because it doesn't. You know what? I _like_ Talisa Maegyr. I like her. I do. In fact, she's one of the few people here that I've always liked. Even when I hated you—I still liked her. And I've hated you sometimes, Robb. I've truly _hated _you. I hated you when we married. I hated you when you left for Riverrun. I hated you when you came back. I hated when you'd talk to me, I hated when you'd touch me, I hated when you smiled at me—I hated when you breathed the same _air_ as me. Because the mess with Talisa that the three of us are in—that was _your_ fault. Not mine, not hers—yours. _Your _fault, and yet I'm the one who has to clean up the mess because surprise!—keeping your promise and holding your own around her isn't as easy as you thought it would be, but your enormous wolf head ego couldn't handle passing up a chance to show me that you could do it—to show all of Winterfell that you could do it—except you couldn't, and _I knew that_ without having to set you two up in the Gray Room. I knew it when we ran into her in the hallway that night—when you two were staring at each other so hard I thought your eyeballs might start to melt. I knew right then that it wasn't really over. So I did what I had to do for the both of you. Not as your wife, but as your _friend_."

"My friend who just so happens to be married to me?" Robb points out. "Who is carrying my child? You weren't trying to be friendly—you were just trying to give yourself another reason to look down on me, to hate me all over again. I saw so much promise in you that week at the Twins, but all you've been doing since you came here is _punish_ me for choosing you, giving yourself an opportunity to hate me more because that's when it's the easiest for you—that's when you're the happiest. When you can hate me and blame me for all of your problems! If you hate me so much then why are you still here? Why didn't you just eat ginko berries and bleed that child out when you had the chance? Why didn't you ever just use that brain of yours to hatch an escape plan? All you ever do is smile and wave as you silently plan someone's death and I was the first person you fooled because _nothing_ about you is real! You're just…half a human!"

Robb gets up and leaves the room, and I don't even wince at the door slamming behind him. I can't feel my limbs anymore. I can't even move.

I sit here for what feels like weeks, frozen in place, repeating his words in my head. Why _didn't_ I just swallow some ginko berries and bleed this thing out? Why _didn't_ I just find some creative way to escape from this place? I should have, shouldn't I? Since I've hated being the queen in the north so much?

I get to my feet quickly—too quickly. My head rushes green for a moment and I have to steady myself. But once it's clear, I pick up my cloak and rush out of the room.

"Israel—" Robb's voice is right there. He was just about to open the door. Well it's good to know how quickly he can calm himself down. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I said all of that. I just—"

"Get away from me for a minute," I say. "Just…let me think."

"I'm sorry—"

"Let. Me. _Think_," I say firmly, pulling my arm out of his grip and pinning my cloak on. "I need to think."

My destination is unclear, but I end up in the observatory. No one's here tonight. No reason to be now that construction is complete. So I've got ample opportunity to take deep cold breaths, look around the place and clearly ponder everything that's just happened.

Let's be honest for a second here—I don't…_hate_ Robb. I did a couple of times in the past. And a couple of times in the past I believed with all of my heart that he hated me too. But I haven't been hating him recently. No, quite the reverse—the gingersnap has sort of grown on me. And I know I told myself I'd thaw out but maybe I've been going about this the wrong way. He's fucked up, too—I wasn't kidding about his wolfish ego—but it would appear that this time, the fault is definitely mine. Because I remember what he told Talisa in the Gray Room. I'm not gonna lie—it struck a chord with me. It struck a chord to know what it really was he had seen in me that made him single me out. He couldn't tell it to me when we talked that night because truth be told we aren't close enough to be having heart-to-hearts like that, but he could tell it to Talisa and he did. He saw promise. And this confession brings a lot to light for me.

Robb believed in me. That's why he brought me here. Before he liked me, before he knew much of anything about me, he believed in me. He believed in me when everyone around him was whispering '_Frey girl_'. He believed in me when he left for Riverrun. He believed in me when he baited me and when he sat through night after night listening to me name all the creative ways to murder his council members and when I was thinking of ways to kill his sex drive, he believed in me. And I told myself that I understood that marriage doesn't fall into any absolute category and I promised myself I would step into the gray a little at a time but have I really done that? Or have I just gone deeper into the blacks and whites and convinced Robb that he should, too? It's never occurred to me how unfair we've been to each other. We are such a fucked up pair.

And you know what's funny? I don't think _anyone_ else could have handled being married to me but this gingersnap idiot. I think anyone else would have killed me by now. But not Robb. Nope. My stupid prince charming-style husband has patience and gentleness to spare, which is good because I need both. So maybe I _was_ meant to get married after all. But only to this guy—this stupid sappy idiot…who's still in our chambers berating himself for losing his temper on his pregnant wife.

See? This is what I mean. Even though his anger is sort of (completely) justified, he's still putting himself in the wrong. Helluva guy, really. Catelyn did a spot-on job with this one.

Robb is right by the observatory entrance when I step out of the staircase.

"Are you alright?" he asks me.

"Yes," I say. And just to calm him down, I give him a hug. "I'm perfectly fine. And I should tell you…I'm pregnant."

Robb nods slowly. "Well then…we ought to put that baby to bed."

You know what's funny? When Robb nuzzles up to me tonight, it doesn't actually make me suicidal. It bothers me a little, but in a sort of good way. My stomach gets a little warm a couple of times, and then I feel it. Something really weird. Like a 'gurgle gurgle gurgle' coming from in there.

Take it easy, kiddo. Not quite ready to be dealing with this sort of stuff just yet.


	15. Chapter 15

**How To Handle Your Rebel King Husband Who Is Too Young To Conceivably Die Of Natural Causes—Westeros Edition**

**Volume Three**

By Israel Loxley Frey Stark

Before I say anything witty welcoming you to volume three, I'd like to take a second to congratulate you. You and your Rebel King Husband have both managed to make it to this stage without killing each other, and for that alone, you are a winner. Pat yourself on the back, and pat your Rebel King Husband as well, but wait until his mouth's full of wine until you do it and then you'll have the bonus satisfaction of watching him choke for a full twenty seconds. Unless your husband is perfect—like mine—in which case all of your attempts to put him in a coma work out about as well as things did for Cersei Lannister. So now that you've gone and dropped the big surprise on Rebel King Husband, who has of course advertised it to the world, the last credible factor that could possibly render you an incompetent queen has magically disappeared. No one can say you were a bad choice now, and if they do, then take comfort in the fact that it's just because haters will always hate. You've done _everything_ that has been required of you. You fixed the castle, you're reasonably well-liked amongst the northern populace outside of this castle full of haters and backstabbing cockroaches and to top it all off, you're knocked up. So everything looks about right, doesn't it?

Uh…wrong again.

I said it before and I'll say it again—one leg of the race doesn't mean you've run your part—it just means that you've moved on to the next leg. And this leg is especially strange because if and when you make it out, you'll never be the same again. This is the leg that will change _everything_. In this leg, you're pregnant. It doesn't excuse you from running as fast as you can outta it and onto the next leg—not at all. It just fucks up the circumstances. Man oh man, does it fuck them up. In some ways, you'll like this fucked-up-ness. In others, you'll want to throw yourself from the observatory tower. Before we proceed, I must again remind you that this is _not_ a self-help book. It's a survival guide, and these words are words to live by so don't fucking take them lightly.

Let us begin.

**1\. Pets**

I would not have begun this volume with this particular segment if it weren't truly strange. Strangeness, in this leg of the marathon, is to be expected, and your pets were the first things to sense the bun baking in your oven. They sensed it before your comrades noticed your weight gain, they sensed it before you started getting morning sickness, and they sensed it before you realized it. They will, during your pregnancy, be on their best behavior. They will not try to kill each other when you are all together. They won't even growl at each other. Your horse will ride slower than ever no matter how much you urge it to move faster. Your wolf will glare at anyone who gets too close to you out of some animal instinct to protect the pea in the pod. Your falcon will try to claw out the eyes of anyone who looks at you the wrong way. Your pets, in short, are fucking awesome, but only when they're actually around you, which—as the time goes by—becomes less and less often. After a while, people will not let you ride your horse out of fear for the munchkin, which leads me straight to the second point.

**2\. Restrictions**

When you are pregnant, there will be a lot of these. There will be ones that you instinctively know yourself—like don't go tree-climbing or standing on the back of a galloping horse—and then there are the ones that you didn't even think about. Like how horseback riding—at any speed—can cause miscarriages. That, you can_ maybe possibly begin_ to understand. But then the whole castle—who is suddenly _very_ interested in your well-being—will pounce on you because apparently, carrying your own blueprints or bending over to pick up a fallen pen can kill this thing. People will be absolutely _horrified_ that they all found out so late, because in the early stages that you decided to keep secret, you could have done anything that easily would have killed their little bundle of joy. So to ensure that the baby doesn't come out looking like a goat, or actually _being_ a goat, you are going to be plied with unwanted, unnecessary advice about how to have a Northern Rebel King's baby. You will not be allowed to protest against this advice. You will not be allowed to question the merit of this advice. You will not be allowed to do anything with this advice, really—except follow it. So here's a piece of advice from one Northern queen to another—keep this thing a secret for literally _as long as you can_. Unfortunately, the only time you'll ever have any peace is when the only people who are aware of this pregnancy are you and the piglet in question. That's the only time you'll have any freedom because once people get word of it, it's just a short stop to not being able to carry your own purse even though it matches the ribbon in your hair or something equally stupid like carrying oranges stuck with cloves in your pocket to prevent diseases that can give your child the constitution of a plague-infected leper.

I didn't know that—tell me more.

Long story short, you will hear many ridiculous things when you are pregnant and if you want to avoid being bullied into suicide, then you're going to have to appear to obey all of them. Just so you know what to expect when you're expecting, I've compiled a list of all the bullshit tips (it happened to my cousin, my queen, I _swear!_) that you will hear.

**Looking at beautiful things will make your child beautiful.**

You, being the realist you are, believe in absolutes. Blacks and whites. Odds and probabilities, not the nonsensical bullcrap that comes spewing out of the mouths of these fools, but you're smarter than to tell these fools that you fail to see how staring at flowers and sparkly fabrics will lessen your child's odds of looking like a squirrel. The bonus is that there will be a fresh bouquet of gorgeous flowers in your room every morning waiting for you. And if that means that everyone who wants to talk to you gets screened so that the ugly people can't get within thirty feet of you, then why not?

**Don't lift your arms over your head or the baby will be stretched to death. **

There's also the fear that the cord will strangle your baby. But if you've been through a fair few stepmoms before arriving in the North, then you'll know that it's bull. Especially considering that your father has so many children that he really doesn't give a damn if the pregnant stepmom miscarries or not, so the people there aren't really as attentive. If her baby can survive her stretching her arms above her head, then it's safe to say that your baby will, too. Unfortunately, you cannot ever try to make anyone around you understand that fact because if you do they will assume you're trying to kill their precious prince or princess. Fortunately, it gets you out of having to do much of anything, so whatever.

**Don't sit in the sunlight or it'll cook the baby. **

You may never have heard of this one, but they _live_ by it over here. That's probably because it's so cold that some might argue sunlight barely touches this place at all—as well as basic human reasoning. So when the day comes when it's pleasantly warm out, guess who doesn't get to enjoy it? That's right—you.

**Don't go in the water or the baby will slide out.**

Yeah. Because after six months, any situation where a baby can exit your vagina is such an _easy_ process. Because your baby can just fly out and that's why you keep your legs closed by default—because you're afraid that if you open them too far it'll just _fall_ out. Don't question it. Just swallow it and do your best to negotiate for a reasonable water level in your baths. Their noses are everywhere so to keep them silent, your baths while pregnant should not reach above your elbows lest the baby that you will have to squeeze out in a few months' time decides to _slide_ out now.

**Don't go out in the rain or the baby will catch fever. **

To which baby are you referring, Winterfell? This one—the one that's housed nice and warm and snug _inside of me_? No, that can't be true—because this baby is safe and snug _inside of me_ and I know—I just _know_—that no one in the world is that stupid.

**Eating soft cheese makes your baby's penis small.**

Assuming that you're carrying a boy—which everyone around here will naturally be assuming—then even carrying soft cheese within _smelling_ distance of you is a punishable offense and people will be calling for the head of this great traitor who dares to try and grow your baby a smallwood. Luckily for you, soft cheese is actually gross to you regardless of whether or not you're pregnant so staying away from it becomes much easier when it's suddenly become an imprisonable offense to even let you see it.

**Don't eat sour foods or your baby will have a sour disposition. **

Um…yeah. You, being the finicky eater than you are, will not really mind this rule much and you'll pass it off as just another stupid superstition to laugh off later. Your Rebel King Husband, however, will adore this piece of advice because his close proximity to you means that for the sake of your unborn child, _he_ also can't eat sour foods. Which means that he is no longer obliged to eat the lemon cakes that his grieving mother makes daily as a coping mechanism. Which is good for him because he hates lemon cakes. So now instead, you and your Rebel King Husband get honey cakes—lots of 'em.

**Stay away from cherries, wine, and other red things that can ooze or your baby will have red marks on its body.**

Your third stepmother did nothing but drink during her pregnancy and that baby turned out spotless. But of course you can't tell these people things like that, so you're going to have to sacrifice your love of strawberries and cherries for a little while.

**Watching sporting tournaments is too exciting and can harm the child. **

This is assuming that the pregnant queen in question finds something appealing about watching a pair of unshaven, sweaty men charge with pointed lancets in preparation to impale each other. If, however, you are the sort of queen who could literally fall asleep during something like this, then it's not much of a loss to you, anyways.

**Exposure to conflict or stressful situations can either kill your child or give them a lifetime of conflict and stress. **

On the bright side, no one yells at you. On the negative side, all of the bullying is done in subtle, undercurrent ways that people think you're too stupid to pick up on but you do because you're you and that automatically means you are smarter than basically everyone around you. Other side—it's going to annoy the _fuck_ out of you when your guards suddenly lead you on a different route to get from one place to another because there's an argument going on in the hallway you usually take. Or better yet—they run into the fray to break up the argument so that you can take your usual route without running into trouble, but you have to wait ten or so minutes until the 'traces of the conflict have vanished from the air'.

**Don't cut your hair. This will cut your baby's life force. **

This is one you have never even dreamed of. You will trim your hair just to spite it and no one will know about this silent act of rebellion but your Rebel King Husband, who will take it as an understanding that you think everything you are being told is bullshit and that his subjects are a bunch of morons.

**A baby conceived by two virgins is always simple minded. **

People didn't really need to panic much when they first found out you were knocked up because they all know your Rebel King Husband fucked everything with a pulse before you were shackled to him. And if these rumors about him were somehow exaggerated and he _didn't_ fuck everything with a pulse, then people can take comfort in knowing that Talisa Maegyr certainly took care of the rest long before you entered the picture. Once that logic has been smoothed out, then you can feel free to wonder what sort of science exists out there than can defend the claim that two abstinent people could possibly be doomed to parent a slow child.

**Hot baths will boil your child.**

The alternative is cold baths, which you will never take.

**3\. Gender**

When a queen becomes pregnant, people automatically assume that you're carrying a boy. When any woman—princess or pauper—gets pregnant, people assume it's a boy. Your Rebel King Husband will tell you—over and over again—that he doesn't care what you give him, but he can't deny what he'd prefer or what the people would prefer. So you're gonna have to hope against hope that you have a boy this first time or else the North will never get it's butt off of your face until you do. And you are _not_ interested in ever getting pregnant again.

**4\. Nights**

It was once mentioned (see: Volume One—Nights) that when your husband is a Rebel King, then it goes without saying that your sex life is a disaster. But your Rebel King Husband hasn't touched you in the past few weeks, which is awfully funny because when he finds out that he put a baby in you, touching you is suddenly all he seems able to do. He will gravitate towards you without thinking, holding you close, trying to get his mini-me as close to the Point of No Return as possible. And the weirdest part is that you're actually not going to mind it. Quite the reverse—as time passes, you'll find yourself oddly disappointed if he doesn't. And just like that, you ease back into the newlywed phase—but this one is driven by some animalistic instinct to bone each other because you feel like it, not because you don't really have much else to _do_ with each other. He won't complain, that's for sure. And you won't, either—not at first. This only lasts until your stomach starts to poke out, unfortunately, because he's suddenly scared he might hurt the baby and you're too grossed out by the sight of him to want him within breathing distance anyways.

In other news, your sleeping pattern is history. The last time you could have gotten any sleep comfortably is that period you wasted getting laid every night without fail. Oh, well. At least you both got a helluva workout. It'll sure make losing the baby weight easier.

**5\. Clothes**

When you arrived, you arrived in style. Delicate, pretty fabrics. Spectacularly embroidered bodices. Carefully tailored skirts designed to swish and flow like water. Unfortunately, your growing munchkin cannot fit into these things with you, and so begins the wardrobe revolution. Your gowns will be hung up in cold storage indefinitely and this is something that it is perfectly acceptable to cry over. To stop the onslaught of tears before you flood the castle, however, your Rebel King Husband will employ a trainer whose exclusive duty is to wait around for the baby to be born so that he can help you get back into pre-baby shape once it's all over and done with. Until then, you're going to be wearing big, loose-fitting gowns, and you're going to be spending most of your free-time making these gowns look attractive enough to be seen wearing them in public. Say goodbye to your fashionable, but not functional, shoes.

**6\. Security**

When you are preggers, this is a big fucking deal. The future of the kingdom depends on the little piglet slow roasting in your gut, which means that you had better believe that your safety is a national fucking security concern. Your one competent bodyguard will no longer be enough. Your Rebel King Husband will not be satisfied until there is a four guard rotation watching your _every_ move around the clock. Heavens forbid you should stumble because if you do, they will summon a team of specialized healers to analyze you from all directions (and in all orifices) to ensure that the stumble didn't give the baby hives. Nothing is more annoying than the chandelier falling in a room that you just so happened to be in and then word reaching your Rebel King Husband that you died in the crash even though you were really standing _twenty feet away from it_. Once your Rebel King Husband has arrived and assured himself that you are okay, the healers have determined that the sound of the crash didn't kill your baby, everyone has held a prayer circle that the crash didn't deafen the child, and people is done calling for the execution of the chandelier, you will be left to resume your daily activities with the company of your faithful maids and four bodyguards in tow. There's nothing quite like it. And when I say 'there's nothing quite like it' what I mean is 'holy shit these people are fucking insane'.

**7\. Labor **

When you are big enough for there to be no doubt about your pregnancy, every time you even touch your stomach, people will assume you are about to go into labor. So don't touch your stomach. At all. Find something else to do with your hands. When you are so big that your stomach enters a room three years before the rest of you does, then you will no longer be allowed to leave your chambers. You will have to sneak out to avoid cabin fever, but be sure that you're clever about it because your bodyguards will incite a riot if they notice you missing.

Aside from the stupidity of confinement, there is one other little detail that you are particularly dreading—the joy of child birth. You will not breathe a word to anyone about this fear. The slightest sign of discontentment will convince these people that you are likely to die during the delivery, which you will not tell them that you are scared might actually happen. The only person you can really tell this to is the only person who can't really answer you with much besides kicks from inside your abdomen, which will steadily increase as time passes you by. It's all a weird and annoying roller coaster ride until you decide that you literally cannot handle the confinement anymore and use the pregnancy as an excuse to do something really fucking drastic, like throwing a stone at Scheming Asshole Steward's face. Instead of worrying about his broken nose, people will be concerned that the child might have suffered from the energy you put into picking up that rock and throwing it.

Golden.

So ride the wave, ladies. Ride it and let it carry you to a better place—or a worse one when you awaken in the middle of the night because your gut is fucking killing you and the night guards who are watching you sleep ring the bells and the healers are summoned and a messenger runs off to inform your Rebel King Husband that it's time for you to bring your munchkin into the world.


	16. Chapter 16

Standing in front of a mannequin has become basically the only real freedom I'm allowed anymore. I have to sit down if I want to look at the bottom of the dress I'm designing and I'm not allowed to handle the pins or the pin cushion. Mira and Julia stand waiting to arrange and rearrange fabrics at my command. I have to stop and think for a minute about the fact that twenty three trunks full of my beautiful perfect gowns are sitting in an unmarked room on the floor below me because I can't fit into them anymore. Watching the guards carry them away was traumatizing.

"Here," I called after them. "You forgot a piece of my heart."

Robb laughed at me. I threw my book at him. And then a team of healers was summoned to ensure the effort didn't kill the baby. As if my word alone wasn't enough. No one ever takes my word for anything. Like the time when I was twelve and had faked bubonic plague so I wouldn't have to go outside and watch the jousts with Septa Morgana. I had been terribly civil and courteous about it, too—as thoughtful as I've ever been about faking deadly illnesses to avoid unsavory situations. I had written her a note in fucking _cursive_ explaining the whole thing. She hadn't bought it and insisted to come into my room and see it for herself, and I eventually had to confess that it was a really bad cough, which was also ignored right before I was dragged to the stands by my collar.

What a bitch.

"Dario will work with you," Robb says. "You'll look fine. You actually haven't put on that much weight. I swear it doesn't even look like you're pregnant from behind."

"He's right, my queen," Dario tells me. "Losing weight _easy_ work. You fit in old gowns again _very _good, _very _good."

"Yes, but I doubt I'll ever be twenty one inches wide again," I grumble.

"Well, I got back into twenty one inches," Catelyn says, stroking my hair comfortingly. "After _five_ children. If I can do it, then you certainly can!"

"I guess so," I say.

"Yeah," Robb says in agreement. "Mind you, it took her twenty five years and a whalebone corset to do it—_oof_—"

Catelyn clubs Robb upside the head with a bowl. Now I have something to laugh about. Dario just shakes his head and continues admiring his reflection in the mirror.

Dario is a 'figure specialist' from the Free Cities. He's thirty two and quite possibly the sexiest man presently living. Don't get me wrong—his face is butt ugly, but something about him oozes sex appeal. Robb doesn't like my being around him, and I could tell the minute he arrived that Robb had regretted hiring him to help me tighten back up after this thing pops out and I've decided that seeing Robb sort of jealous is as close to insecure as this pretty boy backwater gingersnap is ever gonna get so I've decided not to tell him that Dario is a flaming flamboyant sword-swallower of the first degree and that it's Robb who's likely to be unwillingly involved in an affair—_again_.

Let it not be said that pregnancy is a dull affair.

Don't get me wrong. It's not a pleasant affair, either. Just the other day I was sitting in the council chamber and the fabric of the gown on my sleeves was itching my arms like crazy because dammit I'm not used to gowns with sleeves. But no one would hear of me having the sleeves removed or even rolling them up lest my body get too cold and the baby freeze inside of me. I think this kid's more likely to die of heatstroke because these people have fucking mummified me. But anyways, my arms were itching like crazy and it got me really frustrated so I just rolled them up, healers be damned and gave myself the relief of not having to rub the itches out for the next hour and a half. The effect was instantaneous.

"My queen!"

"It's too cold for that!"

"The child, my queen!"

Oddly enough, Ser Garret was the only person who didn't seem too concerned with the baby.

"What a vain one she is," he whispered not-so-subtly under his breath.

I caught it. And I didn't fucking appreciate it. So I let him know that I didn't fucking appreciate it by picking up one of the stones from the nearby flower pot and bashing it into his face. And let me tell you—hearing the 'crunch' as that stone found its target was more satisfying than climaxing underneath Robb Stark could _ever_ compare to. I would safely be able to say this because I have now tried both.

"Your Grace!" Ser Garret called to Robb, spitting out blood. "Your Grace, did you see what she did to me?!"

In true wolfish asshole fashion, Robb laughed at Ser Garret for twenty minutes. Edmure and Bryndon joined him. Even Catelyn couldn't hold back a smile. The only person, it seemed, who didn't find any amusement in the whole situation was me because no sooner had I done it than had the team of healers materialized out of thin fucking northern air ready to probe me in all imaginable orifices with those weird metal rods that I _sincerely_ hope they regularly wash.

"You're not worried that maybe something they're sticking in there might actually do some damage?" I ask one night as we're tucking into bed.

"Their duty is to heal, not kill," Robb says as he blows out the candles. I grumpily turn away from him and bury myself in fur.

Near sunrise, Robb's hand stretches over my stomach for a minute, feeling around. I take his hand and place it directly over junior's foot right before the thing kicks. I can hear Robb smiling and I don't need to check. But because I'm me, I _do_ check, and the smile is enough to light up this whole damn castle. It gets me to thinking what a great dad he's gonna be. He'll be the fun kind, the one that makes his kids laugh and stuff. The kind that could conceivably handle being the father of maybe six or seven of them. Too bad I'm only interested in giving him this one.

I, by sharp contrast, am probably going to fail miserably as a mom. But hey—this whole queen thing doesn't require me to be a good mother. It just requires me to be a mother. Just like how no one specified what sort of queen or wife I had to be.

See how easy life is when you don't get specific?

"I'm really glad I chose you," Robb says around sunrise. "I'm really, really glad."

"Go to sleep, gingersnap."

"We have to pick out a name," he says.

"I already have."

"Already have? What did you pick?"

"None of your damn business. Go to sleep."

"But wait, tell me what you picked—"

"Sleep, gingersnap."

"Give me a hint."

"No."

"Not one?"

"Not _half _of one."

Robb stretches closer and kisses my cheek. The munchkin kicks at the exact same time underneath his hand. He laughs and I know we're both thinking the same thing. In a few months' time, I'll have another annoying baby to deal with.


	17. Chapter 17

Someone posted a review and because they were marked as a guest I couldn't respond, but whoever you are I want to thank you anyways and let you know that I've patted myself on the back on your behalf and I'm really super appreciative for your kind words. They made my whole day. Thanks a million.

-`.

Right when I open my eyes I know today's the day. There's this weird feeling in my lower stomach and it all just seems to echo finality. It's today. It's gotta be. I just know it.

So because I know it's today, I really get to panicking. Because it has only recently occurred to me that I might possibly die. That could be it. Just like that. I may not live to see the end of this whole thing. And it strikes me as strange how I've lived my whole life and now I may possibly just end. That's it. No more Israel. No more waking up and rolling out of bed silently damning the world and no more Robb with his stupid perfectly white prince charming smile and no more cold morning air and no more coordinating my outfits and no more anything.

But I prefer not to think too much about those sorts of situations. They fall into gray, and I'd like to stay consistent. I said I'd step out of the blacks and whites but I didn't mean like this.

So not dwelling too much on death in general but accepting the fact that it is has a relatively high chance of actually happening, I need to spend today wisely. So I will. I make my rounds. My first round takes me to Robb's study.

"You shouldn't be moving around too much this far along," he tells me when I collapse into the chair by the fire.

"You shouldn't be locking me up this far along," I say. "I might die. Pregnancy is dangerous, you know. It's the most dangerous thing that can ever happen to a person."

"It is," he says. "But you're stronger than that."

"Stronger women have died."

"Do you think you'll die?"

"I might. What—you don't think so?"

"I don't consider it to be even the slightest bit possible."

"It's not. It's not possible. It's probable."

"What's the difference?"

"Probables involve actual odds."

"So you think you'll probably die?"

"I think you'd be a fool not to consider the fact that it might actually happen."

"Then I choose to be a fool," Robb says. "I refuse to even consider the possibility that you will die. You've become too dear to me to lose now."

Asshole.

"Stop making fun of me," I say.

He chuckles. "Alright, alright. In all seriousness, I haven't once thought of it. You ought not to think about it, either. It can't be good for you."

"I'm getting really sick of hearing people tell me what's good for me."

"Lucky you, it looks like it'll be over soon," Robb says, gesturing to my mountain/stomach.

And then he falls silent, and he's just staring at my gut and he's got that stupid look on his face again, the one where he wonders what's going on in the wondrous country that has become my belly like he can actually try and guess what's going on in there.

"I don't know what it is, Robb," I say. "And no—you're not going to get to name it."

"Don't you think maybe the father should have some say in the child's naming?"

"Nope. The father's already done enough—let the mother take care of the rest."

"Can you please tell me which names you picked? _Please_."

"For the last time—_no_."

"But what if you die and we never know which ones you picked?"

"So you admit I might die?"

"No. But I'd like to know."

"Forget it. I picked the names. If I don't live through this, then no one gets to know them."

"You would deprive your own child of such a wondrous name?"

"Yes. Yes I would. Eat that."

"So spiteful," Robb says, smiling at me.

I smile back for a second, but then the smile is gone. "I'm serious, Robb," I say to him. "If…something should _happen_…"

Robb's smile disappears too, like he's only just considering it himself. "Nothing will," he says.

"But _if_ something does," I say.

"_Nothing_ will," Robb says.

Oh, bless this poor boy's heart. I just smile at him.

"You're right," I say. "Nothing will."

Robb catches my hand and squeezes it in his. "Nothing. Absolutely nothing. We'll all be fine. All three of us."

"So says the king," I nod.

He is silent for a moment, then he kisses my forehead. "Have I ever told you how wonderful you are?"

"You could mention it more," I say. "Later, though. I have something else I need to take care of."

"Don't leave the wing," Robb says. "Please."

"I won't, I won't," I assure him, releasing his hand and slipping out of the study.

Four guards fall into step all around me. People back away a safe five or so feet before they bow when I pass them. On the upside I don't have to smile at anyone or acknowledge that I've seen them. My destination is my parlor, where Mira and Julia have already arranged my bouquet in the center of the room. This is the only superstition that I don't actually mind. I tell them to send for Hogarth, and he arrives in minutes with ink stained fingers and feathers in his hair.

"What the devil happened to you?" I ask him as he sits down.

"I had a bit of a misunderstanding with a raven trying to send a letter to my mother," he says. He gestures to my stomach. "What the devil happened to you?"

"Robb Stark," I explain.

"Shouldn't you be in bed?" he asks. "You look like you're about to drop at any minute."

"I don't feel that way, actually," I say. "Here, there's something I wanted to give you."

I reach over for the document on the end table, but three other pairs of hands beat me to it. Mira hands Hogarth the document and he stares at it for a few moments.

"What is this?" he asks.

"It's a certificate of recognition," I say. "Naming you the court astronomer. Congratulations. You're the master of the Israel Stark Observatory."

He just stares at it. "But…me?"

"Well, who else could do it? I figured if it was going to be restored and everything, we'd need someone to run it…and you're the only person here besides me who actually knows what they're doing."

Hogarth looks up at me and smiles. "I don't know how to thank you, Israel," he says.

"You can start by accepting," I say. "And then you can get your skinny rear to the observatory tonight and get to work. And you can decide to stay in Winterfell."

He just chuckles, and it occurs to me in this second that Robb wasn't really crazy for thinking that Hogarth and I were having an affair. Because that could have been what we are—it _should_ have been. Aside from his lack of a brain to mouth strainer, we're basically the same person. We should have been lovers. But because I know that this boy is exactly like me, I know that romance isn't his style. I know it's not _his _style because it isn't _mine_ either. Because neither of us believe in that gray area where romance exists. And now I'm wondering when Hogarth is gonna find himself shackled to a girl who will force him to step out of his own boundaries like Robb has done with me. People like us don't love—not in _that_ way. The only way to get married is to have no choice. But Hogarth won't be like me. He'll have someone who understands his brain to guide him along. He'll have me. I'll help him out. I'll guide him through every miserable step and laugh at him more than once because I'm sure all of this must have been hilarious for whoever up there's been watching _me_ deal with it and that means it'll be hilarious for him, too. I'm really looking forward to it.

The next summons is for Talisa. She takes her time showing up—she was in her room when she got it.

"You sent for me, Your Grace?" she comes in.

"Sit down," I say. "Wine? Tea?"

"No, thank you. Is there something I can do for you?"

"I just wanted to tell you that I really like you," I say.

She sort of smiles. "I'm…glad to hear that."

"I mean—can I be frank with you?"

"By all means, my queen."

"I know that you and Robb have a…history. And I know that sometimes these things aren't easily forgotten. And I know that I don't know much about the sort of love that you and Robb shared. Because I've never shared that sort of love with anyone. It's just…not…_me_. And some people would say that I should hate you…but I've never actually been able to do that. I've never even been able to _try_ to hate you. You have a way of growing on people. And I want you to know…I've always hoped that maybe we can be friends, you and I. Do you think we could do that?"

She smiles. A real one. "I'd like that, Your Grace."

Well, who says a Frey girl can't spread cheer?

I don't have any more people I'm interested in talking to, so I just head back to my chambers and sit by my writing desk and take up my quill. Mira and Julia and the guards start to protest but I silence them all by throwing the chamber pot out the window. I sit back at the desk and start writing.

_Dear Piglet,_

_I've got a pretty good feeling that you'll be coming today, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited to see you at last. It's been a wild and strange year here in Winterfell, but because of you I know it's going to end well. Your father—pigheaded gingersnap that he is—refuses to accept the fact that I might possibly die delivering you into the world, so I'm here today writing this in my chamber just in case I don't make it. _

_Winterfell is a place full of dreamers. I knew it the second I saw them. I saw dreams and shades of grey and possibles and maybes and half truths and right away I didn't feel like I fit in here because I don't think like that. I don't deal in possibles and maybes and half-truths. I deal in absolutes, in the blacks and whites and the probables and the dependables. But I'm learning to come out of that habit in some areas of my life and it's doing me well so far—I think._

_I didn't know my mother growing up. I've told the whole world that I don't remember her, but I do. She died when I was young—very young—but I remember enough about her to keep her alive in my mind. I don't think about her often—just when I really need her. After I was born, she got weak. She got weaker and sicker and one day it killed her, so sometimes people like to call it a childbirth complication that never went away. I sometimes wonder how she would have felt knowing that maybe it was my fault that she died, and sometimes it's made me feel guilty that I should get to live at the price of her life. But I now know how she felt. She didn't mind dying for me, and I'd very much like to live, but I don't suppose I'd mind dying for you, either. Without you, I'd never have been able to know how she felt in her last days. But I feel like I know her a little better now, and for that I can only thank you from the bottom of my heart. I want you to know that boy or girl, you're my favorite person here. You're my favorite person anywhere. You are not how I planned my life out to be, but I'm happy with it either way. I hope you remember that when your life turns out funny and so off course that sometimes it's a good thing. So don't ever despair or break when people start to hate on you or the world makes you doubt yourself. Everything will always right itself in the end. And if it doesn't, then it isn't the end. _

_ Yours,_

_ Israel_

_P.S.: Don't ever squeal. _

I fold the letter up neatly and seal it with wax, then toss it into the drawer and go to bed. Everyone else is still awake. It's not late enough for them to call it a night. But it's late enough for me. Mira tucks me in and Julia blows out my candle. The guards assemble in the darkness. Two by the foot of my bed, two by the doors. I let them pull the screens around the bed and lay back, staring up at the ceiling.

This day has been terribly sappy for me. I've decided that—if I live through this—I'm going to have an 'emotional' freak out that will result in Ser Garret falling into a pile of manure. Or maybe I'll just empty a chamberpot over his head. Or maybe I can just keep letting Silver use his head as a chamberpot since he's seemed to make himself at home there anyways. I'm serious. Silver doesn't shit anywhere else anymore. One time he held it for twenty minutes while he waited for Ser Garret to pop up somewhere. Now that's what I call a loyal soldier.

So it's decided, then. Silver will avenge me every time Ser Garret mouths off. And only when the mouthing off ceases will I endeavor to train Silver to use a rooftop like every other bird.

The thought of Ser Garret covered in shit makes me smile into the dark, but the smile is quickly gone from my face when a weird twisting sharpness in my stomach makes me sit up.

"Oh, damn," I whisper.

"Your Grace?"

"Yes, yes, yes," I say, waving off the hands that have reached forward. "Get the midwives, ring the bells, all of that nonsense. It's time."

Oh, fuck. Now comes the hard part.


	18. Chapter 18

-_Six and a half hours_-

All I can think about now is if I drank my weight in corn oil than maybe this thing will just slide out of me. Of course I live in the real world where that's physically impossible, but give me credit for dreaming because reality fucking sucks.

I think the entire castle can hear me screaming, and that only tempts me to scream louder. The attention I'm paying to the noises I'm making only seems to take pressure off the earthquake going on in my nether regions and of course I'd like all of Winterfell to know just how much I'm inconveniencing myself by birthing this little piglet.

So yeah, it's no secret that I've been truly dreading this stage. But pregnancy is a dark and scary labyrinth and the only way out is further in. I've already resolved not to get pregnant ever again. All I have to do now is try my best to actually live through this fucking catastrophe.

Maester Ormond is the only man in the room, and he's at the head of the bed pouring some warm water onto my forehead and whispering his prayers and crying.

"Look at this," he says. "It's a miracle…the miracle of childbirth."

And now I'm having a hard time not imagining myself shooting this baby at his head like a bow and arrow. It is the worst sort of misery imaginable, what this is. Nothing short of life's greatest joke. _First time deliveries are supposed to be complicated_, Catelyn said. _It gets easier_, she said. _You'll laugh about it in a few years_, she said.

Yeah. Fucking. Right.

The door opens. I can't see or hear it, but it's cooler outside in the hallway than it is in here, and the gust of cool air that wafts in feels good on my skin. I don't think Dario will even need to work with me when this is over. I honestly think I might have sweat out all of the weight I've gained in the past six and a half hours I've been in here.

"What's going on in there?" Robb's voice asks as another gust of cold air tells me someone else has come in.

"It's a stubborn babe," says Catelyn's voice as the door closes behind her.

"Keep pushing," says Morgana. "That's it love, you're doing fine."

I'm sure I _am_ doing fine—if my goal was to shit out my small intestine.

-_Fifteen hours_-

This is getting awfully uncomfortable. I'm half imagining that maybe someone will just shove their hands inside my vagina and pull this thing out but of course that's also impossible so no luck for me.

"Your Grace," says Morgana. I can smell lavender and violet nearby. Julia's here. That's her hand—I know it anywhere—that has taken up the business of wiping at my face with a cool clothe. Bless her heart. I was gonna tell Maester Ormond to fuck himself if he sprayed me with that warm water one more time. "Your Grace, listen to me very carefully. You are about to move a very. Big. Building. You have to push it yourself. Do you hear me?"

Yes, I fucking hear you. But your advice is so shitty I refuse to acknowledge that you've even spoken to me.

"Alright, here we go, here we go, here we go," says Leah.

"Mira, get me more water. I need it cold, she's overheating!" Julia calls.

"There it is, it's coming!" says Morgana as a gust of cold signals another arrival—or return.

"Open the window," says Catelyn's voice. "It's too warm in here, give her some air!"

"Leah, take her!"

A rough hand slides into mine. "It's time again, love," says Morgana. "Push."

Well, no fucking way am I going to imagine myself pushing a building, because even stuck in labor for fifteen hours I know that's a gargantuan pile of horseshit and I'm not a toddler. I do, however, try to imagine myself building a very. Big. Building. Like, having to lug the stones all by myself and stuff. That helps—for a while. But not long. Because after a while, it occurs to me that there's no real situation in which I'd ever be solely constructing a very. Big. Building. So really it's just shit.

"Did you see that?" asks a voice.

"Oh, no," says Catelyn.

Well, that can't be good.

_-Twenty one hours-_

I've just about given up and decided to busy myself by counting the specs of dust in the air. There aren't very many that I can see, but at least now I don't lose count. It's cooler in here now than it was before, but for some odd reason I'm still sweating. Ah, well. At least that means I don't have a fever. Which means I'm likely to live through this whole thing. Which means that I will actually get the opportunity to smack Robb across the face with a trout or a mace or a shovel for doing this to me. The thought of it alone makes me smile a little.

The smile is immediately gone from my face, however, when I see a flash of silver in the corner. Two very unfamiliar women stand by the fireplace, unrolling what looks like a tool kit. This isn't the standard toolkit full of shit I've been probed with during the past few months, though. This stuff is scary. And then it occurs to me.

Oh, holy Gods and bright and shiny days and starry nights. They're gonna cut this thing out of me. Not yet—not now. Not until there's no other way. But if they're bringing it out now, then whatever they saw earlier must have been bad.

I reach my hand out into the air blindly, hoping to grab hold of someone. My hand finds a silky bodice and I pull the person wearing it closer. Lavender and violet. Julia.

"Talisa," I say. "Get Talisa."

_-Twenty six hours_-

"You can't cut it out, she can still make it!" Catelyn's voice says.

"The child can if we act now," says Morgana's voice. "But she cannot. You saw it, too, Milady—it came out feet first!"

"It's been still for too long," says Leah. "We could lose it if we don't act now."

"What has the king said?"

"He told us to save them both, but we cannot!"

"Shift it," says her voice at last, though she's been silent for so long. "Shift it now."

"We can't shift it, Lady Maegyr—"

"We have to," she says. "See that? We can move that. I've seen it before. You king commanded you to save them both. Listen to me—shift the baby or they both die."

Oh, how tempting. You can tell I'm being sarcastic, right? Because I totally am. Death is not tempting. Not for either of us.

_Aaaaaand_ here comes the hard part.

Shifting a baby hurts. Really bad. It hurts more than twenty six hours of trying to squeeze it out through a hole between your legs, and I can safely say that because now I've tried both. It's no gray area, this nightmare. It sucks. That's an absolute. Makes me wonder who the fuck would willingly go through this more than once.

"There it is," Talisa's voice says. "Mira, get the water. Julia, close the window. Lady Catelyn, take her hand. Your Grace, it's time now. This is the last time you'll have to push, I promise."

This time, I just picture Robb squeezing out a baby while I eat honey cakes. It turns out quite nicely.

"Look at that," whispers Catelyn. Her voice is thick and quiet and I almost miss it because of the cries echoing through the room. Everyone falls silent.

It's crying…so it's alive. And I can hear it, so I'm alive. So…we both made it.

Of course, that's pretty much the last thing I register before I pass the fuck out.

Pregnancy is life's greatest joke. Really. I'd be inclined to say that maybe the world we live in is trying it's best to be fair to both sexes, but I think that I'm in fairly good position to tell nature to go fuck itself because I just squeezed roughly ten pounds of flesh, blood and bone out through a ten centimeter hole between my legs and I know I had been praying for death before but now that it's done half of me is praying that the Gods will be merciful enough to wipe the last nine months from my memory entirely so I can look at the little piglet later without wanting to toss it into the river for all the misery it's just caused me.

The crying echoes through my head as my brain gets fuzzy and then it hits me. I'm a mom. I'm something's mom. Someone is mine. Completely and entirely _mine_.

This child is going to be _so messed up_.

When I come to, the room is cool and clean and pretty. The window is open. I can hear the most irritating noises outside. The sun is shining—which is pretty fucking weird. And I'm wearing a new, clean, sweat free nightgown. Even my hair's been brushed. Whoopie.

"How'd it go?" I ask. There's gotta be someone in here.

It turns out there are lots of people in here. Julia props me up with a bunch of pillows and I get a good look around. There's Catelyn by the fire, and Talisa in the corner with a nurse, and Leah by the window, and Brienne and Mira and Rickon at the edge of my bed and finally my eyes find Robb right beside me. Someone very small is taking themselves a nap in gingersnap's arms. Robb smiles and holds the bundle of silk out to me. I reach over tentatively, suddenly hyperaware of my fingers shaking. I can smell that 'new human' scent coming off of it, and it's that cute, fresh scent that gets me thinking that I forgive the piglet for the past few months—and the past few hours. I do. I don't forgive people easily, but I forgive this little piglet. Just this once. I'm not handing out freebies. I pull back the silks as it dawns on me that the noises outside are violently loud cheers.

Two things I immediately notice. One, it's a boy. And two—

"Mother of mercy," I whisper. "It's a ginger."


	19. Chapter 19

"I won."

"Won what? No one bet on anything."

"Well, we know I was right. You lived. Here you are."

"So you were right about that. I still feel like I died, though."

"I don't suppose I can blame you. So maybe we'll wait a few years before we have another."

"Are you mad? I'm never doing that again. Enjoy this one while you've got him."

"We can have one more."

"No more."

"Please? I want a girl next time."

"I'd have thought you'd want another boy."

"No, I'd like a princess."

"Well, you can go get one from the next wife, cause you're not getting one out of me."

"Please?"

"No."

"Please?"

"No."

"Not one?"

"Not _half_ of one."

"I'd have thought motherhood would have made you softer."

"I knew fatherhood would make _you_ softer."

"You still sore he's a ginger?"

"No. At least he'll be pretty."

And he will. Unfortunately for me, the only trace of me that exists in this thing is the beauty mark next to his left eyebrow. He is his chokingly perfect father in miniature.

Oh, _joy_.

"Pretty as his mother?"

"Pretty as his father, gingersnap."

Robb chuckles. I suck in my stomach and hold the measuring tape around my waist, then check the number.

"Praise the Gods," I say.

"Success at last?"

"Twenty three. I'm two inches shy of my former glory."

"No one would ever believe that you're so vain."

Actually, I don't think anyone would be tempted to believe anything bad about me anymore, but that doesn't mean they won't try. But who cares? I have now done absolutely everything that is humanly possible shy of sprouting wings and using a magic wand to make all the women princesses and give all the men an extra three inches below the belt. And I can't help but feel sort of really proud of myself. I had a boy. On my first try. Beat that, you snow sucking scum.

I had worked all through the late, confined stages of my miserable pregnancy—which for some odd reason still hasn't been wiped from my memory—designing this damn dress. It ended up being a little bigger than me now since I've dropped so much since Ginger Junior popped out. We had to take it in at the waist three times before it fit me. Which is a terribly good thing, because it means that if I keep going like this, then it'll only be maybe two or three months before I'm back in proper shape. Mind you, this will be no easy task. Breastfeeding makes it hard to fit into some of my favorite dresses but dammit Piglet is _mine_ and I don't like the idea of him sucking the life force out of anyone but _me_ so the nurses with their scarily huge tits can go jump—tit first—in a lake.

I had imagined, when I was getting really huge, that I'd design a gown that could better be described as a piece of string simply to celebrate the fact that I could fit into one again, but let it not be said that shitting a child out has made my imaginary balls any bigger. I wouldn't dare have a gown made like that one I wore on the Day I'm Still Not Allowed to Talk About. But at the same time I wanted something that said 'fuck you' to whoever looks at me. Because this is it, this party. This is my victory lap. My first real victory lap because I've fucking won. From here on out, it's going to be nothing but victories because I've done everything right. Granted it was ridiculous most of the time but whatever. You win some, you lose some. It's called compromise. Welcome to adulthood. And I wanted something that sort of showed off my victorious mood without being called a trashy tavern whore and it's fucking cold up here so that ruled out a lot of options. So now I'm slipping into a gown of silver that announces my arrival thirty years before I actually arrive and you know what? Aside from the fact that my tits hurt like someone attacked them with a straight razor, life is good. Life is good enough for me to plant a kiss on Robb's cheek and maybe sort of almost consider toying with the idea of forgiving him for knocking me up with a ginger.

And there are no sleeves. Life is golden again.

People are eating like they'll never see food again. People are singing at the top of their lungs. People are drinking like sponges. Really _dry_ sponges. And people are laughing. They're clapping. They're cheering. The last time everyone was in this good a mood was the Night Winter Came at the moment right after they all collectively orgasmed but right before they all fell asleep, when they were still caught in their fucked up limbo and not really thinking about the insanity they've just partaken in.

"Bless the Queen!"

"Long live the Queen!"

"Seven bless our darling queen!"

Bless her, save her, love her. Queen Israel Frey can do no wrong. Choke on that, motherfuckers.

"Are you ready?" Robb asks me, holding out his free arm. Piglet is lying wide awake in his other arm. He's awake but looking kinda drunk. Even now with the face of a newborn that looks identical to literally _every other_ newborn I've ever seen, it's crystal clear this kid is gonna be a carbon copy of his dad.

Well, we can't have it all, can we?

"Of course I am. Where's Ser Garret? Oh, to see his face—"

"Israel," Robb nudges me and smiles as he leads us out to the overhead balcony.

The cheers are deafening. Piglets eyes are wider and he squirms in Robb's arm, unsettled by the noise. I look around at all of the shit eating monkeys that are burrowing their heads out of their assholes to get a look at the great job I've done. Hello, world. I think I've just dominated you.

"Long live the prince!" Edmure calls out, handing me a flower. I'm too busy staring smugly at the crowd to notice which flower it is, but whatever.

Frey Girl Triumph=strong.

Winterfell Haters Failure=twice as strong.

"Long live our darling prince," Catelyn repeats, kissing my cheek. She takes Piglet from Robb's arms and holds him close. "We've waited this long, Israel. Now for the love of the Gods, tell us his name."

I thought I'd already told them? Huh. Must have been drunk.

"Eddard," I say. "His name's Eddard."

They're all silent. Well, shit. This was supposed to be an honor. And it's not like I could find a lot of boy names that fit too well with the surname Stark. And I think I would have liked Ned Stark. I always imagined that I would have liked him a lot. Well, I certainly _hope_ that I would have. How miserably perfect can one family be, right? At least _one_ of them has to be close enough to flawed human to be likeable, and it might as well be their dad, right? Because…you know…if he was perfect, then he probably wouldn't have died.

Robb grabs my arm, pulls me close, and plants a big sloppy kiss on my face. I wince.

"Ew," I rub at my cheek, but he's already attacking the rest of me. "We're in _public_, Robb."

"I adore you," he says in response.

"Good, good, now get off of my face before you're forever branded as the King Who Couldn't Keep it in His Breeches."

"That doesn't actually sound too bad."

"Are you mad? Get off of me."

Robb laughs and holds me close. "You're perfect," he says.

"Almost perfect," I say back. "I've got two inches to go, remember?"

He just laughs at me. Through the crowd, I can see Talisa. I instinctively push myself away from Robb and give her a smile. It's a real one. Because if it weren't for her, I'd probably be dead with my belly sliced open and Robb would be alone up here dressed in black. She smiles back. It's strained, but there's something real under there and I know that she may be gone in a few weeks but we're gonna be okay. One day, maybe, this will all be behind us.

Not too far from her is Hogarth, and he's got this lopsided smile on his face and then he mouths something I can't understand or hear through the cheers. And then his eyes find Robb and he chuckles and it hits me that finding out whether or not Robb would squeal is going to become our next big mission. And the thought of how we'd go about trying to figure it out makes me laugh, too.

Catelyn hands me the Piglet and his whole face seems to relax when I'm holding him. I lean in close to his face and kiss his cheek. Fuck, his skin is soft. Why can't my cheek be soft like that? Like baby soft. Babies have it made.

I get closer to his ear. "These people are mad," I whisper to him. "Complete nutters. The whole lot of them. Even your father. _Especially_ your father. But I'm going to assume that the Gods wanted to be fair so they've given you your father's face—but on the condition that you get _my_ brain. And if that theory is true, then that means the two of us will have to stick close together to maneuver this place. So what do you say, Piglet? Are you with me?"

His face puckers like a choirboy's asshole. He's already bracing himself for the rest of his life. Count your blessings, Piglet. At least _you _got fair warning.

"Good enough," I say, holding him closer. "Welcome to the black and white."

_-end-_

There will actually be a third part. It's called _Infinites_ and it's set from Robb's point of view. So…yeah. Thanks for reading.


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